When you're no longer there, the state will look after your child using the insurance money.

The scheme, called Asmita, to be launched by the National Trust ­ the autonomous branch of the ministry that focuses on these four particular disabili- ties ­ will provide life and acci- dent insurance cover to the par- ent or legal guardian of any child who falls in these categories.
Once you're gone, the money will be used by the National Trust to take lifelong care of your child.

Insurance companies have been asked to submit their bids by March 15. "We'll be working through the district collectors and var- ious NGOs working in this field, whom we are already in regu- lar touch with," said Atul Prasad, chief executive officer, National Trust. "We expect to launch in the next two months.
We hope to enroll around 10,000 parents in the first year."

"The premium will depend on the age of the parent. The older he/she is, the higher it will be," he added.

"Since this is a group insur- ance policy, the premium will be much lower than if a person insures himself individually," said Sanjay Pande, Managing Director, Amicus Advisory.

There are an estimated 22 lakh people suffering from these four forms of disability, accord- ing to National Trust statistics.

This clause is generally carried in fine print and can easily be missed by the consumers.

So, in such cases can the consumers file their complaints under the Consumer Protection Act and avail of the inexpensive and speedy remedy or would they be bound by the terms of the agreement and have no alternative but to resort to arbitration? The above issue became all the more controversial for the reason that Section 3 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 lays down that the provisions of the said Act " shall be in addition to and not in derogation of the provisions of any other law for the time being in force". Are the provisions therein in derogation of the Indian Arbitration Act? These questions have often been raised in consumer disputes and are still being raised.

The above issue came up for an authoritative ruling before the Supreme Court in the case of Fair Air Engineers Pvt Ltd, which had entered into a contract with K. K. Modi to carry out the installation of a central air- conditioning unit at his residence in New Delhi. Since it committed a breach of contract Modi filed a case before the Delhi State Consumer Commission claiming a compensation of Rs 3.75 lakh for alleged deficiency in service.

The author is an advocate and editor of Consumer Protection and Trade Practices Journal ( CTJ).

rosykumar2000@ yahoo. com

Source: Mail Today By Rosy Kumar Consumer fora can handle arbitrations

India's existing laws equip the police to arrest only those touts who operate in select places such as at railways stations or bus stands.

The proposed law, called The Delhi Prevention of Malpractices and Touting Bill, 2009, has been sent to the home ministry for approval, a senior state government official said.

" It could be tabled in the ongoing budget session of Parliament for it to become an Act," said a state home official.

The proposed law makes touting a non- bailable offence and a first time offender, including anyone who abets touting, can be jailed for up to one year or slapped a fine of up to Rs 2,000 or both.

A repeat offender can be jailed for up to two years and slapped a fine of up to Rs 5,000 for every subsequent offence. Even an attempt to tout is a violation of the proposed law and offenders can be jailed for up to six months or fined up to Rs 2,000 or both.

The law also empowers the police commissioner to banish a repeat offender from Delhi for up to a year, said a home ministry official.

Convicting touts will also become easier as under the proposed law written complaint will be considered evidence and a judge can deliver judgment even if the complainant doesn't turn up in court.

Said an MCD official: ``We are not accepting conversion and parking charges payments in the form of cheques as many of the cheques tend to bounce. We are also facing a similar problem with regard to cheque payments made for property tax, advertisement payments etc.'' Meanwhile, Congress councillor captain Khavinder Singh said instead of sealing an entire building which is the present practice MCD should seal floor wise after ascertaining which floors have made payments and which have not. MCD's standing committee said they would make required amendments in its present policy.

The new headquarters of the civic agency will be called Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Seva Kendra, the MCD naming committee has finalised.

According to MCD Leader of House Subhash Arya, the naming committee passed a resolution to this effect last week under Section 42 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act.

The minutes of the resolution were confirmed by the agency on Monday and will now be tabled before the MCD House. It will be implemented once the House passes it. "It is only befitting that the MCD headquarters is named after the great leader. While the decision faced opposition from the Congress, we never thought about changing it," Arya said. "We are confident of the support of the House and after the next meeting, the resolution will be implemented," he said.

The MCD has further decided to name the five blocks of the 28-storey building after Indian rivers Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati, Kaveri and Godavari, Arya added.

Source: The Indian Express Civic Centre to be named after Jan Sangh founder

The lights were launched by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on Tuesday and they will upgrade the streetlights in two phases. The first phase will cover 101 km, and streetlights have been installed on 52 roads including Panchkuian Road, Raja Garden to Pankha Road, Delhi Gate, Dr Krishan Marg etc. In the ongoing second phase, 107 roads will be covered. The total project will be completed by May.

Under the new system, the lights will switch on after sunset and switch off when the sun rises. All the streetlights will be monitored from a central control room and the project is worth Rs 200 crore.

Tweets & news from Delhi

"The system cuts down on manual or timer-based operation of streetlights and the lights are automatically turned on and off according to the sunrise and sunset time. This will lead to energy conservation and reduce CO2 emissions. The system is GSM and GPRS based. Each feeder pillar powering approximately 70-80 lights is controlled by a device, which has a SIM with GPRS connectivity," said MCD commissioner K.S. Mehra.

``In case of any fault, residents can alert the maintenance staff with an SMS. A report on the operative and non-operative lamps will also be made available under the system besides detection of theft of power from the feeders," he added.

Besides implementing the project in all municipal zones in the Capital, the MCD has also decided to introduce new and smaller autotippers.

These smaller vehicles, officials say, will enable garbage collection in colonies that have narrow lanes and even unauthorised colonies.

Two new auto-tippers will be introduced in the West zone on Monday. If it turns out to be successful, the MCD will introduce more such auto tippers in all zones. "Our plan is to get at least one such auto tipper for every ward in each zone. If need arises, we will get more," Prashant Lokhande, Deputy Commissioner, West Zone, said.
According to the civic body, the size of the new auto-tippers will be suitable to navigate through narrow lanes and by lanes. Like the auto tippers that are currently being used, even these will be fitted with sirens and a public address system to announce their arrival. The MCD will play audio messages motivating citizens to deposit garbage in these auto-tippers.

Source: The Indian Express New, smaller vehicles for door-to-door garbage collection

The civil aviation ministry has okayed the plan to set up the facility whose phase I would cost under Rs 500 crore. It will come up 60 km off Jaipur and 12 km from the national highway that connects Delhi to Jaipur. Promoters Rajasthan Aviation Infrastructure (India) have tied up with Fraport AG of Germany for technical consultancy and are planning to get the airport up and running by 2014.

The cost structure of the new airport stacks up against the Rs 10,000 crore provisioned for first phase expansion of the Delhi airport and the Rs 2,000 crore that each of the Bangalore and the Hyderabad airports cost.

The project will also be India's second private-run airport, after the one in Kochi. Ajay Dua, chairman of Rajasthan Aviation Infrastructure, said they had requested the Rajasthan government to provide road connectivity to the site in lieu of sweat equity.

Source: Economic Times By G Ganapathy Subramaniam First No-Frills Airport To Come Up Near Jaipur

Sugar is now being sold at Rs 39 per kg, as compared to Rs 47 per kg on January 15.

The cheaper sugar is being sold at big retail stores such as Vishal Mega Mart and Reliance, among others.

" I went to buy sugar on Saturday at a Reliance mart. To my surprise, the price had dipped from Rs 50 to Rs 40. This is a good step taken by the government," Preet Vihar resident Neelima Singh said.

Small retail shops, however, are yet to get the low- priced sugar.

" We are yet to get the supply of new sugar. We hope it will come in a day or two. Right now, we are selling sugar at Rs 50," said Mohan Aggrawal, a retail shopkeeper at Mayur Vihar.

On Friday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had admitted in the Rajya Sabha the government's failure to control the spiralling sugar prices.

Source: Mail Today By Mausam Sharma Sugar prices going down in Capital

The Jal Board has been enforcing the use of meters to check its spiralling financial losses. In the absence of functional meters most domestic connections were being billed at a flat rate of 20 kilolitres per month.

"The old practice resulted in severe losses and the Jal Board decided to press for the mandatory use of water meters," said a senior official.

The Jal Board and consumers are, however, in a fix since the companies that manufacture the meters are unable to cope with the heavy demand. The deadline for installation of new meters has been extended twice over from December 31 in 2009 to January 31 and now to March 31.

Source: The Hindu By Smriti Kak Ramachandran Delhi Jal Board now tapping foreign firms for water meters

Being constructed by the Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS) Limited for the New Delhi Municipal Council, the new bridge will make crossing the busy Park Street safe, easy and comfortable for all.

The need for this bridge was felt as crossing Park Street had become a nightmare for pedestrians in view of the high speed of the large number of vehicles that move through the road. As a number of sick and elderly visited the hospital, it was found that they faced great difficulty in finding their way across the road.

Soon all this will be a thing of the past. The new bridge will have lifts at both the ends so that the pedestrians, in particularly the sick and the aged, can cross with ease. As for the ordinary pedestrians, there will also be escalators on either side of the bridge.

The ridge will be nearly 45-metre-long and will be constructed at a cost of Rs.5.6 crore. It is expected to be thrown open to the public by this coming August. While the columns have already been erected, the deck girder would soon be installed.

* Other foot over-bridges

Source: The Hindu A brand new bridge for the Capital

In his complaint, Mr. Gandhi cited some of the appeals before him that were filed by activists revealing rampant unauthorised constructions taking place in the city. Most of the illegal constructions coming under the ACB scanner were carried out in Shahdara Zone.

In all, 141 such constructions are presently under investigation. The case has been registered under Section 13 1D and 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and 120 B of the Indian Penal Code.

One of the appeals pertained to illegal construction of 65 buildings in Shahdara South Zone of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. The superintending engineer concerned acknowledged the existence of those structures that were built without approval of any plans. The engineer also informed the appellant and then the Commission that 74 other properties in the area had been constructed without prior approval of MCD. Complaints were received against illegal constructions but no action was taken.

The complaint raised suspicion that there was a modus operandi at work to ensure that illegal buildings were constructed without any problems. While the builders started constructions, no cognisance was taken to the complaints. The buildings would allegedly be constructed in about six month but later it would be claimed that they were old constructions.

Source: The Hindu By Devesh K. Pandey Unauthorised constructions come under ACB scanner

The concept is an initiative by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and Delhi will be the first off the block to implement it through its integrated services portal `Jeevan'.

As part of the initiative, it will be mandatory for each department in the Delhi government to adhere to SLAs of the government and deliver services within a deadline. Significantly, the official concerned would be penalised if delivery of a service shoots past the deadline.

The government will begin with nine services for now, Delhi's IT Secretary Savitur Prasad said. While the basic framework for Jeevan is already in place, the government is also looking at keeping track of the status of these services provided online.

Services chosen for pilot run

• Issuing driver's licence
  
• Voter I-card
  
• Ration card
  
• Birth certificates (in NDMC areas only)
  
• Electricity and water bills, among others

Source: The Indian Express No more missing deadlines: from April 1, babus pay penalty for delayed services

Replying to a question in Lok Sabha, minister of state for Urban Development Saugata Roy said Land and Development office of his Ministry has issued notices to all the filling stations encroaching government land in the city.

The Land and Development office of the Ministry is responsible for the administration of the properties belonging to the central government in the city.

He said one CNG station has also encroached on government land in the city.

Roy said civic agency MCD has also been told to remove the encroachments.

Giving details of the land allotted to oil companies, he said the Delhi Development Authority has given land to 180 filling stations and 54 CNG stations while the Land and Development Office has allotted land to 66 filling stations and 15 CNG stations.