JAIPUR: Once again coming down heavily on illegal mining in the state, a division bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice Arun Mishra and Justice N K Jain stayed all mining activities in Puhaniya village of Buhana tehsil and in Chanaana village of Chirawa tehsil in Jhunjhunu district.

The PILs claimed that mining lease holders are doing illegal mining outside the pit allotted to them. The use of explosives is causing health hazards and also resulting in cracks in constructions.

JODHPUR: The Rajasthan High Court on Tuesday ordered halting of all mining activities in the Beri Ganga forest land, which had badly affected the catchment area of the Bal Samand Lake and its feede

JODHPUR: Union Textile and Commerce & Industry minister Anand Sharma on Saturday, while expressing concern over the closed textile units, announced to set up a high level committee to look into the damages caused by the textile industry to the local environment and ecology at Jodhpur, Barmer and Pali.

Headed by secretary, textile, the committee will work out economically viable technical solutions to get over the situation

JAIPUR: The Rajasthan government, for the first time, is experimenting with scientific ways for maintaining land records in the state.

Under the national land records modernization programme, the settlement department has initiated a landmapping project with the use of Electronic Total Station (ETS) technique and is planning to later use satellite images and aerial pictures.

JAISALMER: Railway stations under the Jodhpur division will be lit up using solar energy soon under a plan being made in this regard. Discussions for the pilot project have already started and initially a few railway stations will be selected for this experiment, where solar panels will be put up to generate power supply.

Apart from this, work will be started on three types of action plan to eliminate unmanned railway crossings by 2015, Jodhpur division rail manager (DRM) R K Jain said.

The Rajasthan Government will construct five lakh houses during the next five years under an affordable housing scheme for providing shelter to the weaker sections of society.

A loan worth Rs.3,400 crore is being obtained from HUDCO for another housing scheme as well.

Rajasthan will soon accord the bio-diversity rich Jawai Bandh forests in Pali district the status of a conservation reserve.

Concern over decline of Rajasthan's State bird population

The critically-endangered grassland species, the Great Indian Bustard, will be counted in the desert terrain of Rajasthan in the second week of February. Rajasthan, specially its desert region, accounts for maximum population of the bird which is globally threatened and listed in the Red Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Addressing the public meeting at Rewara, Gehlot said the Gujarat CM who was visiting the state a couple of days ago, had said a lot of things. “The neighbouring state has just started producing 150 MW of solar power but because the production began before Rajasthan, they are taking credit. Rajasthan will soon overtake them and would be way ahead,’’ he said.