Pune: With reservoirs in the state collectively holding 44% water, the state government has asked all divisional commissioners to reserve water for drinking purpose and restrict its usage for non-drinking purpose.

“At least 1,155 villages and 3,709 hamlets are facing severe water shortage. The state is providing water through 1,539 tankers to areas reeling under water scarcity. The state has spent Rs 248 crore to run fodder camps sheltering 1.69 lakh cattle,” a statement released by the government said.

PMC Analysed 35 Child Deaths, Below One Year, Between May 2012 And January 2013

Pune: Low birth weight, a common cause of infant death in rural areas, is also the leading factor linked with infants’ death in Pune, states the latest child death audit report of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). What is more worrying is that preventable diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and jaundice continue to cause child deaths in the city.

Mumbai: Days after the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal in connection with a case of alleged illegal construction on Pune’s Mutha river, but kept open the questions of law involved, the National G

Cyrus Poonawalla?s Serum Institute of India to enter injectable polio vaccine market, undercut Glaxo

Billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla, founder of the world’s biggest maker of vaccines, will slash the price of polio immunisation and introduce shots for diarrhea and pneumonia, undercutting Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Poonawalla, who set up the Serum Institute of India Ltd in 1966, will use last year’s acquisition of a Dutch vaccine business to add the injectable form of polio inoculation to the oral drops the Pune-based company supplies to organisations such as the United Nations Children’s Fund, he said.

Pune: The state government has decided to set up water testing labs at district and sub-district hospitals across the state to provide safe drinking water in rural areas.

As part of this initiative, the state health department will set up 137 labs at the cost of Rs 15 crore. The aim is to increase the frequency of water testing and to decentralize monitoring and surveillance of all drinking water sources in the state. The Union government, under the National Rural Drinking Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance Programme, granted funds to the state’s water supply and sanitation department which in turn channelized them to the state’s health department for setting up labs as they do not have the required infrastructure.

A spectre of severe water scarcity looms large on large parts of the state with the total water storage only 48% of the capacity in the 2438 dams and reservoirs in the state at the end of second we

With water crisis becoming a permanent scenario for the last three years, the draft civic budget presented by municipal commissioner Mahesh Pathak on Tuesday has proposed Rs 223.08 crore for water

'This year, due to drought conditions, the production estimate was lowered to 520 mn litres. Nearly 500,000 litres of water is required per distillery per day'

Distilleries in Maharashtra face a severe cutback in operations and ethanol output due to the state’s severe water shortage. Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, president of the All India Ethanol Manufacturers Association, told Business Standard: “Of the 90 distilleries, a large number are located in drought-hit Sangli, Satara, Ahmad-nagar, Pune and Solapur districts. Maharashtra’s ethanol production during the current fiscal year is estimated at 52 crore litres, compared to 54 crore in 2011-12 and 68 crore in 2010-11.”

Sunday was the third coldest January day in city in the last ten years

After experiencing one of the coldest days on Saturday, mercury levels in the city continued to dip further as Sunday became the third coldest January morning in the last ten years. On Sunday, Mumbai recorded a minimum temperature of 10.4 degree celsius (Santacruz) — a departure of 7 degrees from normal and 16.1 degrees celsius (Colaba) — a departure of 3.4 degrees from normal.

Mumbai: The state government has decided to permit use of no-development zones (NDZs) for industrial, commercial and residential activity in the exit policy for special economic zones (SEZs).

A basic floor space index (FSI) of 0.5 on the gross area will be permitted in NDZ areas. As an exit route, the state’s new industrial policy permits conversion of denotified SEZs more than 100 acres to integrated industrial areas (IIAs).