Chandigarh, August 25

The Haryana government has set up the Haryana Agriculture Development Agency (HADA) under the overall supervision and guidance of its board of patrons headed by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

The agriculture minister, the power and irrigation minister and the chief secretary will be the members of the board of patrons.

Agriculture minister H.S. Chatha said the agency would be an autonomous body and it would have a governing body under the chairmanship of the financial commissioner and principal secretary, agriculture.

The Municipal Corporation is all set to ease the traffic situation of the city with three new paid parking lots in Industrial Area, Phase I. This would ease the problem of parking that is presently being faced by visitors to the area.
The parking lots would come up near the poultry farm, behind the dairy farm and near the parking area allocated for trucks. The parking lots have already become functional on a temporary basis. However, the final approval has been sought from the Finance and Contract Committee. The issue will be taken up during the meeting to be held soon.

With an aim to enhance their population, the Chattbir Zoo will soon breed the Shaheen Falcon, popularly known as baaz.
The number of these endangered birds has been on the decline mainly due to consumption of DDT-infested preys.

The bird is revered by the Sikh community as a prized possession of Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth guru of the Sikhs. This is for the first time in the country that the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) has approved such a project.

Anyone passing through Dadu Majra cannot miss the unbearable stench.

Reason: A garbage dumping site is located in the area and garbage collected from the entire city is brought here. And since it is uncovered, the stench that hits a passerby is unbearable. Heavy rains have further added to the misery as the foul smell increases manifold during rains.

The solid waste management plant set up in the area has a capacity of processing around 300 to 350 metric tonnes of garbage per day. However, it will take another three months for the plant to start functioning completely.

If you are driving down to Chandigarh or Shimla, expect a smoother and faster ride from now on. With the opening of the 3.4km elevated corridor on NH 1 on Wednesday, travellers will be able to avoid the notorious traffic snarls at Panipat

The cabinet today approved a pilot project for providing safe drinking water "based on reverse osmosis and related technologies' in selected villages of the state under the public-NGO-community mode through the Naandi Foundation, Hyderabad.

As many as 100 villages will be taken up Mewat, Mahendragarh, Jhajjar, Kaithal and other districts. A committee with the deputy commissioner or the additional deputy commissioner as the head, Naandi Foundation, and the panchayat representatives concerned as members will be formed to implement the project at the local level.

Flowing with ample rainwater a month and a half ago, the seasonal Ghaggar now has little water to offer.

Unscheduled long power cuts offering little time to farmers to irrigate land, an abysmally low water table and erratic flow of water in the Ghaggar are giving sleepless nights to tillers. Farmers with land along the river in the district are more concerned.

A farmer of Khareka village, Baijnath, who cultivates nearly four acres located near the Ghaggar, says these days one notices water in the river, but the flow is less.

The state health department has decided to award a trophy to the police recruits of the IRB, Bhondsi, in recognition of their contribution to administering polio drops to kids during the pulse polio rounds in Gurgaon district, besides learning effective policing techniques.

Funds crunch limits options Starved of funds to purchase adequate power to meet the demand in the state, the PSEB authorities have started imposing heavy power cuts, varying from 6 to 8 hours daily. Sources said the demand for power yesterday was in the range of 1,750 lakh units against the availability of power of 1,501 lakh units. Consequently, the PSEB resorted to power cuts in various areas. The cuts have to be imposed despite the good rainfall that has helped the PSEB in a big way to keep the consumption of power in the farm sector on the lower side.

A national-level workshop on promoting Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) is being organised by the Haryana Renewable Energy Department in collaboration with Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) of the Union Power Ministry on July 11 at Gurgaon. Haryana Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Renewable Energy and Power, Ashok Lavasa said the workshop is aimed at highlighting the issues of energy efficient and design, create awareness about ECBC, technological options and project achievements made in energy efficiency in building operational strategies.