The Planning Commission on Monday approved a Rs.8,200-crore Annual Plan for Uttarakhand for 2012-13 which is Rs.400 crore more than last year.

“The Commission is fully aware of the infrastructure deficit in the State and its constraint in meeting the cost of infrastructure development…We will try to give Uttarakhand all help and assistance to ensure its overall growth and development,” said Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia after meeting Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna.

New Delhi: The Centre is likely to clear the first all weather tunnel project connecting Kashmir Valley to Leh on Monday, which will be built at a cost of approximately Rs 2,700 crore.

RoadMin for upgradation of 20,000 km highways to two-lane standards on EPC basis during the XIIth Five-Year Plan

To accelerate highway building process, Road Transport Ministry is all set to bid out at least 3,000 km of projects this fiscal and 20,000 km by 2017 under EPC mode that minimises risk to developers. Finding that 20,000 km of National Highways of the total about 74,000 km are single, low density traffic lanes, not viable on PPP (public private partnership) basis, the government is ready with the final draft of EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) that would be sent to the Cabinet by the month-end.

The government and the MCI dither on a proposed course to provide better primary health care in villages.

State gets high praise from Planning Commission on exceptional performance

As projected by the State Government, the Planning Commission has approved the Annual Plan Size 2012-13 for Arunachal Pradesh at Rs 3,535.00 crores. This was finalized at the meeting held between Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia and the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh Nabam Tuki at the Planning Commission on Wednesday. The meeting was also attended by Union Minister of State for Planning Ashwani Kumar and other members of the Planning Commission.

With India accounting for 1.21 billion people, a call for taking concerted action to stabilise the country’s population was made here on Wednesday on the occasion of World Population Day.

A Conference on ‘Population Action: Towards a Better Tomorrow’ was organised at Vigyan Bhavan which mooted repositioning family planning, especially in high-priority States, increasing participation from politicians and other ministries, increasing visibility around population stabilisation and also generating more awareness on family planning.

New Delhi The power ministry has stuck to it its original proposal to levy a total of 21% import duty on power equipment despite changes sought by a host of central ministries seeking higher duty protection for the domestic engineering firms such as Bhel and L&T.

In a recent draft Cabinet note, the power ministry has retained the proposal to levy 5% basic customs duty, 12% countervailing duty (after the excise hike announced in the Budget to 12%) and 4% special additional duty on power equipment for all categories of projects bearing non-mega, mega and ultra mega tags. Cumulatively, the duty works out close to 23%, which power ministry feels is adequate disincentive for power producers to go for imported equipment.

Hundreds of pro-dam activists left Srinagar (Garhwal) in buses on Monday to take part in a one-day dharna by Uttarakhand Minister for Drinking Water & Education Mantri Prasad Naithani at Jantar

Its Projected Outlay For 12th Plan Is 2.69L Cr. An ongoing exercise at the Planning Commission lays bare Bihar’s ambitious growth agenda.

Days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh proposed to launch an integrated health mission to pep up urban health, the Union health ministry has started giving final shape to the `17,000-crore National Urban Health Mission.

Senior officials in the health ministry revealed that EFC note has been finalised and will be circulated this week. The NUHM aims to benefit the urban poor in seven metros and 772 cities with a population of more than 50,000.