The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has introduced a Negotiable Warehouse Receipt (NWR) system to help farmers avoid distress sale of their produces.

In a statement here on Friday, NABARD chief general manager K.C. Shashidhar said the NWRs would enable small and marginal farmers with Kisan Credit Cards to avail post-harvest loans at concessional interest rates and store their produce in warehouses against warehouse receipts.

Reopening the waste treatment plant at Villappilsala at the earliest, entrusting its running to competent agencies, and rescheduling door-to-door waste collection to the evenings.

The second half of 2012 will prove critical for the Vizhinjam International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) project. The three-season Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the project will be completed in July.

Before the port can come up on the 110 hectares of land reclaimed from the sea, the EIA report has to be published and public hearings held. Next, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has to give its nod.

Six species of wetland birds—including two, classified as ‘near-threatened'—were spotted at the Thenmala dam by a team of surveyors from the Forest Department and the Travancore Natural History Soc

The Forest Department would enforce strict monitoring mechanism at Ponmudi Eco-Tourism counter to check the dumping of plastic waste and bottles at the tourism spot.

Steps to augment sewage treatment and water supply will be taken up before the next season at Sabarimala besides improvement of roads and parking facilities, Minister for Transport and Devaswoms V.

Drive on against hawkers who encroach upon footpath

A series of measures has been initiated by the city police to check illegal parking of vehicles on roads and footpath, and to ensure that road users are fully benefitted by the road corridors that have been developed under the City Road Improvement Project (CRIP) in the capital.

Source-level treatment of waste to be promoted

Committing itself to continuing with the practice of treatment of garbage at source in the capital city, the government on Tuesday made out a case for a small quantity of garbage to be taken to the garbage treatment plant at Vilappilsala for treatment.

Dharna held in front of Chandy's house

Deputy Mayor G. Happykumar led a protest march and dharna in front of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy's residence here on Sunday in protest against the garbage disposal crisis in the city.

Corporation cites environmental, topographical reasons