Chief Minister P.K.Dhumal warned today that water scarcity and other environment-related problems were bound to get aggravated unless effective steps were taken to reverse the process of global warming and asserted that the Centre must compensate the hill states that were playing a vital role in reducing greenhouse gases by maintaining forest cover.

RANGIYA: With the monsoon having set in, the citizens here are in for another spell of unhygienic living, as heaps of garbage soil the roads and add to the existing filth and squalor. While waste and garbage spilling out of bins have become a common sight, most of the streets present a deplorable sight, as the filth lay strewn all over the road owing to the slushy atmosphere, which is accentuated by the rains.

General Motors Corp is taking another stake in a company focused on developing ethanol from sources other than corn, the automaker said on Thursday. Mascoma Corp is testing its process for converting biological wastes -- plant matter, grasses, wood chips and other non-grain sources -- to fuel. It expects to start producing ethanol later this year at a demonstration plant in New York state.

The acute drinking water shortage and the failure of the door-to-door garbage collection scheme dominated the proceedings of the monthly meeting of the local Municipal Corporation (MC) today. The councillors demanded that residents should be provided adequate drinking water at least on alternate days. Expressing concern over the acute water scarcity in the capital most of the councillors demanded that concrete steps must be taken to provide relief to the people.

The city would be made free from the nasty sight of dustbins and the garbage strewn around them in just four months, said the commissioner, Mr Mukesh Kumar Meena, who returned from Hyderabad after attending a workshop there on sanitation. Talking to the reporters here, Mr Meena said already a pilot project has been launched in Ward Nos 6, 8, 9, 11, 18 and 19 on experimental basis and as it proved to be a successful venture, the project will be implemented all over the city in four months.

A massive awareness programme, "Operation Clean Ananta' has been launched by the mayor, Mr R. Parasuram, and the municipal commissioner, Mr B. Naga-bhushanam, on Wednesday. A rally was organised to create awareness among people from Sainagar to the district collectorate.

After introducing a scheme to save electricity by popularising the use of energy-efficient CFL lamps, the state plans to undertake energy audit of all government buildings to help reduce power consumption by at least 10 per cent. This was announced by minister of forests and environment J.P.Nadda while launching the seven-week "seeti bajao, Shimla bachao' campaign to check littering of the "Queen of Hills' involving schoolchildren.

The dustbins at different parts of the Chittagong city have been overflowing with rubbish due to lack of proper supervision by the Chittagong City Corporation, posing threat to public health and environment. According to the CCC sources, there are 1,243 dustbins and 36 containers in 41 wards under the corporation with 1,855 cleaners and 103 vehicles engaged in removing the garbage.

The civic body has announced an ambitious plan to give away prizes to clean wards in the city. FPJ treks down to the dirtiest areas in the city to listen to citizens' woes on reasons for the filth. Zeenat Nagree reports.