The oil price hike burdens already strained State finances and threatens to jeopardise welfare programmes run by State governments. THE Union government's decision to raise the prices of petroleum products has placed State governments in a quandary. While taxes on petroleum products constitute a significant proportion of a State's revenue, a reduction of these taxes could undermine the State's fiscal balance.

Pune, July 2 PMC considering city company's membrane filtration plan to provide 50 lakh litres a day A project to procure potable water from Pashan lake is under active consideration of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). Membrane Filters (India) Pvt Ltd, a Pune-based company working in the field of filtration systems, has approached the PMC with an offer to make the lake water potable by installing a membrane filtration system.

Mumbai, July 2 Three turtles which washed ashore were released into the sea off the Juhu beach early on Tuesday morning after they were rescued and treated. Injured in the fishing net, the turtles were unable to swim and were rescued by local life guards. While, two turtles were treated by physicians, the third one swiftly jumped back into the sea when it was removed from the tangles of the net.

Mumbai, July 2 Doctors caution against self-medication, advise immediate medical intervention Besides large number of cases of leptospirosis, dengue, malaria, gastroenteritis and viral fever, doctors across the city are also seeing a small, but significant, surge in typhoid cases. "Pre-monsoons we saw hardly one typhoid case in 15 days. But now we are getting at least two per week apart from the usual viral fever, malaria and sporadic dengue cases,' said Dr Jayesh Lele, a private practitioner in Malad.

Mumbai, July 2 A day after Municipal Commissioner Jairaj Phatak cited to Mumbaiites the example of the people of The Netherlands who "have learns to live with floods', diplomats from the The Netherlands pointed out tersely that the Dutch had overcome the devastating floods of 1953 and could quite easily offer Mumbai's administrators some advice on how to tackle the elements.

Pune July 01 The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) has urged citizens to make a solemn promise to conserve energy. Pradeep Bhargava, Chairman, Confederation of Indian Industries, Maharashtra said that Pune has zero loadshedding and has proposed that consumers should endeavour to keep the energy bill the same in rupees which they were paying before the reliability charge came into force. Bhargava who pointed out that the Pune model that was operational from June 4, 2006, was steered by CII and had resulted in the city being free from load shedding.

Mumbai, July 1 200 mm in Colaba, 149 mm in Santacruz; before monsoon, BMC said widened drains ready to take 400 mm rain in a day The fear of the monsoon havoc hit Mumbaiites once again on Tuesday morning as rail and road traffic were stalled by waterlogging and two people were washed away by flood waters in suburban drains. Worse, by evening, a harried Municipal Commissioner Jairaj Phatak had this to say: "In the low-lying country, The Netherlands, people have learnt to live with rains, as they cannot cope with the situation.'

Pune June 30 The central government loan waiver scheme will see Rs 636.23 crore being waived off for 1.87 lakh beneficiaries from the district. With the list of beneficiaries being put up at all banks with June 30 being the last day, collector Chandrakant Dalvi who had a meeting with all the bank representatives on Monday, said that all these farmers will be eligible for fresh loans.

Pune June 30 Out of Pune's annual credit plan of Rs 5,063.80 crore for 2008-09, 70 per cent or Rs 3,560.78 crore goes to agriculture that comes under the priority sector of the plan. The credit plan has 22 banks

Mumbai, June 30 Next on the agenda: only off-street parking In a move to discourage people from bringing private vehicles to the business district, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is all set to increase parking charges after 16 years by four times. Next on the agenda: parking on streets will be banned and off-street parking will soon be introduced.