Pune News Blog
A blog about life in Pune and various news in Pune city

About 4,056 kilograms of ganja of worth Rs 40 lakh was detained by the Pune rural police on Sunday. It was found in a godown at Kelvade village on the Pune-Satara road.

The Pune police have arrested a known drug peddler Vilas Chandrakant Shinde (51) of Mangalwar Peth. In 2007 the Pune police had recovered 800 kgs of ganja from the raided godown that was taken on rent by Vilas.

According to inspector Sanjay Bothe of Rajgad police station they received information that a large quantity of ganja has been stored in the godown at Kelavade village. Sunday evening they raided the godown and recovered the contraband from the spot.

It was exposed during the investigation that the godown was given on rent to Vilas by the owner Sunil Konde just a month ago. Vilas revealed that he smuggled the ganja from Andhra Pradesh and stored it in the godown. He supplies ganja in Pune and nearby areas.

According to inspector N V Nikam of the anti-narcotic cell (ANC) of Pune crime branch, Vilas was arrested in March 2007 with 800 kilograms of ganja. His crime partner Moinuddin Shaikh was also arrested. Both used to supply ganja in the city. Vilas was running the business after Shaikh’s death.

The rates for water tankers were fixed by the Pune Municipal Corporation on Monday. The decision was taken following the complaints received from many citizens.

The rates are fixed for tankers that purchase water from the PMC. The charges will be Rs 600 for 10,000 liters, Rs 700 for 15,000 liters and Rs 800 for 20,000 liters. Citizens may complaint or make contact with ward office of the PMC if any tanker is charged more than the decided rates.

According to the civic chief, there are 23 tankers of the PMC plying in the city including six for Phursungi and Urali Devachi. About 47 tankers are hired by the PMC that will make 300 to 350 trips in various parts.

The BJP assumed that the tankers sell water at a cost that is nearly six to seven times higher than the PMC rate. According to the citizens, the PMC provides water at Rs 200 per tanker of 10,000 liters; whereas, the tanker owners charged Rs 800 to 900 per tanker. Even today the rates are very high in some places.

Around 2,200 precious and old Marathi hand written manuscripts from 14th to 19th century will be available on the World Wide Web. The manuscripts will contain writings of different saints, purana granthas, biographies and translations from Sanskrit to Marathi by famous or well known writers like Mukteshwar and Vaman Pandit.

Former librarian V. L. Manjul of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute collects these manuscripts and it took almost six years for him to make this collection. It also includes 100 copies of ‘Dnyaneshwari’.

This collection is the property of various institutes such as Pune Marathi Granthalaya, Deccan College, BORI etc. It also happens to have come from various parts of Pune, Kolhapur, Satara, Karad and Mumbai. According to Manjul, there are 250 manuscripts in the collection, which are under the control of Marathi Manuscript Center. Manjul himself established the organization to save these rare documents.

People may see this collection on the web, which is created by the South Asian Studies Center of the Deccan College. This online collection will help people from various places in the world who wish to study Marathi manuscripts. These manuscripts will be completely uploaded on the web within a couple of months.

Some people including Sadanand More, R. C. Dhere, Anne Feldhause and Eleanor Zelliot helped Manjul in the collection process. They also encouraged him to start the Marathi Manuscripts Center.

Directions are given to the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation by the state government to complete the construction of remaining 10 buildings under the housing scheme for economically weaker section (EWS) by the end of July 2009.

According to Ashish Sharma, the commissioner for PCMC, there are total 15 buildings to be constructed at Nigadi under EWS, out of which only five buildings are completed. On Satuday, the issue was raised during the visit of Sitaram Kunte, secretary of the housing department. He further added that the civic body wanted to install the project in the presence of chief minister Ashok Chavan and union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar.

The commissioner further said that there is a new scheme by government for EWS housing, under which people may get subsidy of five per cent interest on loans up to Rs 1 lakh. However, the local level banks are not conscious about this, therefore the discussion will be held with bank officials to get loans at low interest rates. The Hudco and National Housing Boards are going to repay the interest subsidy.

The commissioner said that the water meters are installed in all buildings and are going to speak with the officials of Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited regarding the difficulty in getting meters for the receivers.

There will be about 175 new buses in the PMPML, and the state government has sanctioned Rs 40.5 crore for this project under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Mission (JNNURM).

As per the decision taken by the government on July 1, 2009, the amount will be released as a first installment to add buses in Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal’s fleet.

The funds have been released after a meeting held last week between Pune MP Suresh Kalmadi and state chief minister Ashok Chavan to discuss various issues regarding Pune.

As per the announcement of the Union Ministry of Urban Development the funds were released in January this year and the purchase of buses will be added to the JNNURM funding schemes. The decision was taken to improve the transport service in 56 mission cities of JNNURM.

Pune is one of the first cities receiving the sanction for the proposal to obtain buses. Rs 40.5 crore will be used for first batch to buy 175 buses and there will be a total 650 buses that have been sanctioned.

State government is going to take review for every three months and will judge the improvement in the bus procurement process and the use of funds.

The Pune Guardian Minister Ajit Pawar suggested to PMC and PCMC to install meters for all consumers to save water.

He was speaking at the meeting called on Thursday to discuss water crisis. He said that there is a need to install meters for all users of Pimpri-Chinchwad and Pune. According to him the system will help to save water and will allow people to use water very carefully.

The Union government is installing meters and has set 24 hour water supply following the condition of equal cost of service and its recovery under JNNURM. The civic body has constantly tried to introduce the new water billing system to calculate water tax. The PMC, however, had sanctioned it for domestic users from April 1, 2000.

There will be world class facilities at Pune station in future. Railway minister Mamata Banerjee said on Friday in her budget that the Pune station would be one of the most developed world class stations. The station will have all the facilities that an international level station has. Railway administration has already started all major up-gradation work.

Public relation officer of the Pune railway division Y. K. Singh said that the work is undertaken though they have not yet received any details about the plan. Commuters welcomed the proposal but said that the facilities, which are being up-graded, are not enough.

He further added that the division has spent more than 8 crore for up-gradation and decoration of the station. Currently there are many plasma TV’s at every 15 meters distance and enquiry booths are also placed for passenger convenience. The other up-gradation at the places such as waiting rooms and retiring rooms has been up-graded. The station is now well equipped and has CCTV cameras.

Condition for the special lighting has also been made on platforms that give a fresh look to the station. The new gates have been opened at platform number one that will avoid the passengers to take longer route.

The city is facing shortage of water in the beginning of the mansoon. To solve this problem Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has decided to reform the water distribution system in Pune.

Municipal Commissioner Mahesh Zagade said on Monday that Pune is a growing city and is having various demands including water supply. According to him the problem may create in future and need a plan to tackle such situations. There are some plans on cards such as leak detection, water supply from closed pipelines and replacement of old water supply.

He further added that the PMC will sketch a plan for the implementation of the event and trying to get financial support from JNNURM and the state government. PMC also help for such events. The water supply in the city is not uniform that is one part receives less water supply while other part receives more than 135 litres per head. Now the PMC is looking for supplying uniform water supply in city.

According to him the citizens may face shortage of water and it may be major crisis issue. There may be a strict discipline regarding to water use. City wastes about 300 MLD water per day because of leak and faulty pipelines. PMC is going to focus on this type of problems to solve water problems.

Students’ organization has demanded for the fix fees for professional courses during admissions. Representatives of Students’ organizations including Rashtravadi Vidyarthi Congress and Maharashtra Vidyarthi Parishad were present.

Students’ Welfare Association of Pune, Suresh Jain said on Monday that they had demanded for the fix fee structure to the SSS before starting the admission process. He added that it will be helpful for the parents to send their ward to a particular college according to fee structure.

The Shikshan Shukla Samiti (SSS) will decide a temporary fee during admissions and the fixed fee will be announced in the next six months.

These organizations have planned a meeting at Patrakar Bhavan with students and parents at 2.30pm. According to organization they will move a step of complaint if the immediate action is not taken.

The newly admission students have started to prepare for popular prizes in theatre. Purushottam Karandak, which is going to be organized by Pune based Maharashtirya Kalopasak is calling new entries to show their performance and theatrical skills.

Entry forms are available at the Maharashtriya Kalopasak office of Subhashnagar for these two days July 14 and 15 in between 6pm to 8pm. The selection process for the registration of the admission will be depending on the early entries of the participants. The waiting list will be prepared on July 14 and 15 of the participants who are looking for the participation for first time.

According to Hemant Vaidya, secretary of Maharashtriya Kalopasak, they have around 45 entries for the competition for every year. He added that the first choice will be for the first and second runner up of last year. The interested participants willing to register for the competition have to submit their scripts by July 26 with Maharashtriya Kalopasak. According to Vidya the scripts will be sending to the censors and after that the announcement of selected entries will be done on August 2 and 3.

The preliminary rounds will be held from August 8 to 14 and August 16 to 21 and final round will be on September 5 and 6 at Bharat Natya Mandir. While, the award distribution ceremony will be held on September 13 at the same place at 5pm. Veteran singer, Ramdas Kamat will present the awards to winners, he is also in chair at that evening.