The responsibility of municipalities to provide crucial services is being increasingly passed on to the resident welfare associations located in middle and upper middle class areas in cities. Similar tools of intervention are absent in the slums and low-income neighbourhoods and even the local ward committees fail to represent their needs and aspirations.

Hill station burns biogas that can meet the needs of 300 families matheran, a hill station 100 km from Mumbai, still relies on horses for transport and is off limits for motor vehicles. In March 2007, the town lived up to its green image by installing a garbage disposal plant that converts organic waste into methane gas and manure. Two years down the line, there are no takers for the gas

An ambitious plan to lower municipal electricity bills THE Centre will monitor electricity consumption pattern of municipalities from March. This is to reduce the 10 per cent power deficit and 16 per cent peak power deficit in the country.

gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on March 29, 2007, announced a Rs 13-crore scheme for the state's urban poor. The programme, called Garib Samriddhi Scheme, envisages, among other things,

on april 13, 2007, residents of Achen, a locality in Srinagar, and the municipal authorities agreed that three new dumpsites should be set up in three zones of the city, to supplement the

garbage  

Burnt or buried, garbage needs land

green flag to blue lady: The Supreme Court, on June 5, 2006, gave the green light to the French cruise liner S S Norway, a k a Blue Lady, to enter Indian territorial waters and permitted it to

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