MANGALORE: Srirangapatna in Srirangapatna taluk of Mandya district recorded maximum rainfall of 14.5mm in Karnataka in last 24-hours up to 8.30am on Friday.

Is the PPP model going to work in the field of drinking water services?

Based on GIS application system, the department of mines and geology has so far digitized 4,500 mining leases in the state

The Karnataka government has embarked on a project to build a geo database on GIS application system for mapping mineralized zones, developing mineral atlas, data on existing leases, which will be helpful to process the mining applications online. The department of mines and geology (DMG) has undertaken this project. Under this project, up to the end of October 2012, the department has completed digitization of 4,500 leases for various minerals in the state, the government said in the Economic Survey of Karnataka for 2012-13.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the State Forest Department are at loggerheads over plans to cut down trees so that the Bijapur-Gulbarga-Humnabad National Highway 218 can be widened.

Contradicting the NHAI’s claims that the loss of several trees will not adversely affect the environment, the State Forest Department said that cutting down the trees will have a disastrous impact on the flora and fauna of the region.

Power Company of Karnataka Limited (PCKL), a wholly-owned company of the government of Karnataka, will shortly issue request for proposal (RFP) documents to 22 bidders qualified for its proposed 1,320-Mw Gulbarga coal-based super-critical thermal power project. The project is proposed under the Case-2 bidding framework according to the competitive bidding guidelines. The cost of the project is estimated at Rs 7,500 crore.

PCKL is a special purpose vehicle created by the state to bridge the widening gap between demand and supply by capacity addition through the competitive bidding route. The Gulbarga project is the first to be taken up by PCKL under the competitive bid route.

Surplus production forces Federation to look at new markets

The Karnataka Milk Federation will supply skimmed milk powder (SMP) to over 20 lakh anganwadi children in the age group of six months to three years, and to five lakh adolescent girl children identified by the Department of Women and Child Development. The Federation will supply 1,000 metric tonnes of SMP per month from December till March to anganwadi children across the State and an additional 60 metric tonnes of milk powder to malnourished children aged between three and six years in Bidar, Gulbarga, Yadgir, Bellary and Koppal districts, KMF managing director Harsh Gupta said on Friday.

The State government would extend the solar street light project to all parts of the State in the coming days, Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar said here on Monday.

Mahesh, an exhibitor from Hubli, displays a solar lamp, at ‘Solarcon India 2012’ in the City on Monday. Speaking at the inauguration of Solarcon India 2012, a solar energy event, being held at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC), the chief minister said a large number of solar street lights and signals have already been installed within Bangalore and a few other cities.

A mega cement manufacturing plant and a 50 MW captive power generation unit will be set up at Burigpally and Ghanapur, in Chincholi taluk.

The decision was made after Shiva Shankar Minerals Limited approached the government on establishing a factory to produce 3.5 million metric tons of cement each year. The project currently requires an investment of Rs 2,250 crore. The proposal was made at the Global Investors Meet (GIM) and accepted by the government after receiving approval from the State High Level Clearance Committee. Phase 1 alone will require an estimated 1,050 workforce.

Nearly 35,000 trees will have to be felled to make way for widening of the 223-km long National Highway 218 that passes through Bijapur, Humnabad and Gulbarga, affecting the already thin forest cover in the region.

Bijapur, Gulbarga and Bidar have a negligible forest area of three per cent. In such a scenario felling of trees will have an adverse effect on the annual rainfall, temperature and flora and fauna in the three districts, say environmentalists.

Private company accused of plundering natural wealth

A private company has been allegedly extracting high-quality Shahbad stone slabs illegally at Wadi and villages near Chittapur in Gulbarga district for the past several years. According to Ashok Dahinde and Nariman Irani, the shareholders of Wadi Stone Marketing Company, the firm was quarrying stone even after its lease had expired in 1992.