The city corporation council has decided to seek government’s immediate intervention in resolving the issue of water scarcity in various parts of the city.

The council will exert pressure on state government to hasten land acquisition and other works for the proposed Piravom water supply scheme, which will augment water supply to West Kochi and adjoining areas.

CHENNAI: The Institute of Town Planners India (ITPI), Tamil Nadu chapter, has urged the state government to constitute a technical advisory group of eminent citizens for Chennai Municipal Corporation, and other major cities, to advise on sustainable development.

ITPI secretary R Shivakumar told Express after the release of a newsletter ‘Planners’ that the recommendations had been submitted to the government after a workshop was held to mark the golden jubilee of the institute.

A meeting to review the status of the drinking water projects under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) for Kochi will be held in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday.

Convened by Water Resources Minister P J Joseph, the meeting is expected to discuss the initiatives for solving the portable water crisis faced by the city, especially the West Kochi area. The ministers from the district, the MLAs and Mayor Tony Chammany will attend the meeting.

ZAFAR ALAM KHAN notes that first blood was spilled in Aishbagh police station area where a man was murdered following a dispute over filling of containers.

When the first set of detailed data from Census 2011, Houses, Households Amenities and Assets, was released a couple of weeks ago, there was much flinching at the fact that around half of all Indians still defecate in the open. The census data also showed that piped and treated drinking water is presently enjoyed by just a third of Indian households.

Now, the aim of providing sanitation and piped drinking water for all will demand increasing allocations. But the CSE report Excreta Matters: How urban India is soaking up water, polluting rivers and drowning in its own excreta shows that mere money just can’t solve the problem.

Mawprem legislator Manas Chaudhuri on Wednesday raised concern over the shoddy manner the drainage system under the JNNURM Scheme is being implemented in various parts of the city.

“It is really painful that there are many drains being constructed in slipshod and unprofessional manner,” Chaudhuri said during the Question Hour in the Assembly.

“The agreement signed during the previous Congress regime was in favour of private firm”

Recently, Chief Minister N. Rangasamy, on more than one occasion, expressed his displeasure over the substance of the agreement reached between local bodies and the selected private player to manage solid waste in Puducherry.

Since infrastructure inevitably lags behind commercial development, there is a severe water problem in about 800 new colonies located at various places in 12 surrounding municipalities that are now part of Greater Hyderabad. A majority of these colonies are not even connected to a drinking water distribution system and thousands of families have to buy drinking water.

Even after 7 years, big chunk of JNNURM phase-1 projects still on paper; phase-2 may be announced in April

The proposed phase-2 of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) may see allocations double, though close to half of the phase-1 projects remain pending, especially in the case of housing for the poor.

Play a dry Holi, save water — reads a newspaper advertisement put up by the state drinking water and sanitation department. But the department for one doesn’t seem to practise what it preaches.