Over 13 lakh trees have been illegally cut in state-owned forests since 2005, depriving Maharashtra of its precious forest wealth.

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 faulty design was the ostensible reason for the cost of the Nerdhamana irrigation project in Akola district to skyrocket from an initial estimate of Rs 181 crore to Rs 638 crore.

The controversial white paper on irrigation projects produced by the state water resources ministry is littered with outdated, confusing and allegedly misleading statistics.

MUMBAI: A survey contractor, Yash Engineers, wrote to the state government three years ago, suggesting that Rs 1,000 crore could be saved if the alignment of the left bank canal of the Lower Pengan

Mumbai: Deputy CM Ajit Pawar of the NCP may find himself embroiled in the controversy surrounding the large-scale and arbitrary increase in the costs of irrigation projects in the state.

Change of ownership at Veerangana Steels under scanner

The government’s high-level panel looking into the controversial coal block allocations for captive mining has decided against cancelling three blocks, given to Nagpur-based Shree Veerangana Steels. This is despite the company facing the government’s ire for having allegedly sold its blocks by selling ownership of the firm, in violation of the norms. The inter-ministerial group (IMG) had in its review meeting on Wednesday recommended deducting the company’s bank guarantee but said the block should not be cancelled, due to the progress made by Veerangana in developing the reserves.