There is good news for electricity consumers from the south of Mumbai as they will now get to choose their power supplier. Instead of simply relying on the BrihanMumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST), an arm of the local civic authority BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation, for power supply, they can now approach Tata Power.

While the government recently said that the state mangrove cover has been shrinking over the past few years, the mangrove cell of the forest department revealed that no reduction in overall cover occurred from 2009 to 2011.

N Vasudevan, head of the newly-created mangrove cell of the forest department, said both 2009 and 2011 reports on state mangrove cover put the figure at 186 sq km. “Although there may have been sporadic incidents of destruction, overall there has been no reduction or increase in the cover during this period,” he said.

The growing demand for power generation equipment in view of growing number of power projects in Vidarbha has led Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) to acquire 200 acres for a proposed Rs 1,000-crore fabrication unit near Sakoli in Bhandara district. BHEL is in the process of acquiring the land, stated by K S Mathur, Head, Power Sector, Western Division of BHEL, at a press conference here on Friday.

The growth of water hyacinth-like plants in Mithi river near the international airport in Andheri has turned the stretch into a breeding ground for mosquitoes, complain civic activists.

After reports surfaced that bio-medical waste of Masina Hospital was being dumped outside its own premises, flouting disposal norms and precautions, the BMC on Friday, in a face-saving tactic, picked up the waste and dumped it in the lane across the hospital. Ironically, adjacent to the dumped waste stands another hospital, albeit a private one.

The spot where Masina Hospital had dumped its bio-medical waste was quite clean on Friday afternoon. However, shopkeepers across the hospital said that the civic garbage van had come in the morning to collect the waste,

Takes it to task for lands allotted to undertakings lying idle over years, also for lack of maintaining data base

The Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) has rapped the Maharashtra government for lack of a mechanism to carry out a periodic review of the lands allotted to Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) and other state undertakings. Such a mechanism, according to the CAG, was necessary to ensure that land not required by these undertakings would be available to the government for other welfare measures.

New Delhi: It’s early days yet, but the first indications from within the country about this year’s monsoon are positive.

The need of the hour is to encourage and strengthen the public transport so that there are few private vehicles in the city.

For the first time, the State government filed cases of cheating and criminal breach of trust in 18 districts against Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company (Mahyco) for failing to deliver the promised quota of a single variety of Bt cotton seeds in th0e 2011 kharif season.

Official sources said before sowing last year, Mahyco had accepted bookings from dealers and retailers for 16.76 lakh packets of MRC 7351 variety Bt cotton seeds but delivered only 9-10 per cent of what was assured.

Scarcity of water for thermal power projects is likely to affect electricity generation in Maharashtra in summer.