JAIPUR: The Jal Mahal land lease agreement dispute reached the Supreme Court on Thursday, as was widely anticipated.

The private company, the Jal Mahal Resorts Pvt Ltd that was to lose the lease after the Rajasthan High Court declared the agreement illegal, filed a special leave petition (SLP) before the apex court, challenging the verdict passed on May 17. The SLP was mentioned before a division bench of Justice Deepak Verma and Justice SJ Mukhopadhaya that directed that the case to be listed again on Friday.

JAIPUR: The department of telecommunication (DoT), government of India, in its letter to the state government has made it clear that the emission level from the cellphone towers in Jaipur is well within the limit and indicates that it poses no threat to human life.

Addressed to the chief secretary, the letter says, "Radiations in the city are within safe limits and absolutely follow the international standards". It added that no excessive radiations emitting from the towers were found by the DoT. GS Sandhu, principal secretary, urban development and housing confirmed the development. "We have received the communication from the DoT and it stated that radiations under the safe limit".

JAIPUR: When the state government is gearing up to promote the technology to produce fuel out of wastes, a similar arrangement in the city is failing due to alleged sapathy of Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) in providing solid waste to one of the private companies which has set up its plant here.

A private player has established an industry to process municipal solid waste on the outskirts of Jaipur to generate 130-140 tons of refuse derived fuel (RDF) out of 400-500 tons of waste per day.

JAIPUR: Following the empowered committee's directions that was constituted to develop Pink City as a world-class city, the Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) on Monday will start its anti-encroachment drive in the Walled City area.

During the 10-day drive JMC is targeting to remove temporary encroachments from the roads and verandas in the Walled city area. The authority, however, is not planning to remove any permanent encroachments during this drive.

Mushrooming multi-level residential buildings and absence of a proper government policy to provide water connection to these complexes are leading to a grave situation in the city.

Since the civic authorities are not providing water to residential complexes, the private builders are digging borewells to meet the demand, putting extra pressure on the depleting groundwater level. Yet, the state government is far from making a concrete policy on it and departments are passing the buck.

JAIPUR: The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation's (DMRC) proposal of operating and maintaining of the Jaipur Metro for one year after completion of the project may not be accepted by the Jaipur Metro Rail Corporation (JMRC). To operate the Jaipur Metro under the surveillance of experts, the DMRC has proposed that JMRC should take over after one year when the new staff is well-versed with the operations and maintenance.

However, JMRC chief managing director N C Goyal says, "We are confident of handling operation and maintenance from day one. As some day we have to take the responsibility, it's better to take it from the start." He added, "The option of DMRC assistance and expertise is always available."

The Supreme Court today asked the Jaipur Metro Development Authority to seek permission from the Ministry of Environment and Forests for carrying out sand mining from river bed for its metro rail project.

A special forest bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and C K Prasad said the MoEF shall consider within 10 days any application moved by the metro corporation for excavating sand from the river bed. The apex court passed the direction after Attorney General G E Vahanvati told the bench that the project development had been adversely affected after the Rajasthan High Court recently restrained any type of mining activities from Banas river.

JAIPUR: Though the Public Health and Engineering Department is claiming that the 'yellow water' is safe for drinking, the health and medical department is yet to give its approval on the quality of the yellow water, which is being supplied to the city from Bisalpur.

The medical, health and family welfare department collected samples from various parts of the city on Monday. It has sent the samples to the Jaipuria laboratory for testing its quality.

The Jaipur Metro Project on Monday rushed to the Supreme Court complaining that its construction work was badly hit by an order of the Rajasthan High Court extending the SC's ban on mining in Aravalli hill range to extraction of sand from Banas river bed.

Appearing for the metro project, scheduled to be completed by June 2013, attorney general G E Vahanvati informed a bench of Justices K S Radhakrishnan and C K Prasad that there never was a ban on extraction of sand from the river bed.