New Delhi: Is urban India drowning in its own excreta? Nearly 80% of the sewage generated in India flows untreated into its rivers, lakes and ponds, turning the water sources too polluted to use.

With the Union urban ministry emphasizing the funding of major transportation projects in the country, Gujarat's cities have readied teams to lobby for multi-crore BRTS projects to be taken up on priority basis in the coming JNNURM committee meeting. The Union budget has made provisions for almost Rs 14,873 crore - a major portion of which will be directed at buying 10,000 buses across the country.

Gujarat cities like Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara which are either at key points in their BRTS projects, or have yet to start work, would be visiting Delhi in the coming few weeks.

AHMEDABAD: It's not Ahmedabad alone that is aiming at the tall order, but major cities in the state have been given the go ahead with higher FSI limits by the state urban development department (UD

Three people were killed and one person has been reported missing in the fire accident at IOC at Hazira in Surat on Saturday noon.

However, experts from the oil and gas industry feel that the move by company would not bring much relief in the present high price situation

City gas distribution major Gujarat Gas Company Ltd (GGCL) has decided to focus on domestic suppliers for procurement of LNG after its supply contract with BG gorup subsidiary, BG India Energy Solutions Private Limited (BGIES) expired last month. GGCL used to source re-gasified LNG (RLNG) from BGIES. After British Gas Group sold its stake in GGCL in October, 2012, the company has decided to give preference to domestic suppliers. GGCL has PNG customer base of over 350,000 in three cities of Surat, Ankleshwar and Bharuch. It also has close to 200,000 CNG consumers.

Surat: A high density corridor will be developed in the diamond city to boost growth and solve transportation problems in its new areas.

It would be 29 km long and would come up along the 66 km Outer Ring Road where there is maximum residential and commercial development. The project is slated to begin immediately after the assembly elections. The total cost of the Outer Ring Road project is estimated at Rs 5,500 crore and it will earn a revenue of Rs 11,500 crore through sale of FSI, etc. for Surat Urban Development Authority (SUDA) and Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC).

Surat: Surat could well become the first city in India to make solar water heating in all buildings, residential and commercial, mandatory.
Earlier, this year, the Union urban development ministry had made it mandatory that civic bodies of all 58 cities identified to be made “solar cities” change their construction bylaws to make solar energy compulsory for water heating systems.

The Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) will make the necessary changes in the bylaws of construction within a month. There are 10.2 lakh houses and nearly 65,000 commercial buildings in the city, which will have to switch over to solar water heating.

AHMEDABAD: In order to achieve the norm of minimum 15% tree cover, the forest department is planning to adopt the public private partnership (PPP) model to increase the tree cover in eight municipal corporations and 159 nagar palikas in the state.

The recent tree census taken up by the social forestry division of the forest department revealed that there were 33 lakh trees in the eight municipal corporations. The forest officials said that going by the minimum number of 15% green cover against the total geographical area, the eight municipal corporations need another 56.4 lakh tress of which Ahmedabad city requires the maximum of 13 lakh trees to achieve the target of 15%. This was followed by Surat which requires 12.37 lakh more trees.