DC to give report on land for airport work

DC to give report on land for airport work
The Hindu - Staff Correspondent

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# Plan to develop airport according to global standards
# Deputy Commissioner to meet with residents of the area
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DHARWAD: Deputy Commissioner of Dharwad M.S. Srikar will submit a report within a week on the acquisition of 650 acres of land for the expansion of the Hubli airport.

This follows a high-level meeting convened by Tourism and Infrastructure Development Minister B. Sriramulu in Bangalore recently, involving Revenue Minister Jagadish Shettar, Pralhad Joshi, MP, senior officials of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Mr. Srikar.

The AAI had submitted in September two revised master plans for making the airport an all-weather one. While the first was for acquiring an estimated 446 acres of land for facilitating the operations of an Airbus-320, the other was for developing the airport according to international standards and making it suitable for handling big flights.

Mr. Srikar told The Hindu he had been asked to submit the report at the earliest and he would be doing so within a week. He had presented an initial report at the meeting based on the revised plans for the airport and would now submit a detailed plan along with the ground survey report.

Demolition

The number of houses that would be demolished for the airport's expansion would be less than a 100. The earlier plan submitted by the AAI had said that more than 500 houses would need to be demolished. However, the officials had revised the plan after an appeal was made by the district-in-charge Minister and the district administration, Mr. Srikar said.

Responsibility

The district administration had suggested at the meeting that the responsibility of acquiring the land be handed over to the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB), he said. Approximately Rs. 150 crore would be required for the acquisition of the land. Mr. Srikar said he would be holding a meeting next week with the residents of the area whose houses would be demolished to facilitate the expansion of the Hubli airport.

Water supply project to take off in Dec

Water supply project to take off in Dec
TIMES NEWS NETWORK - M L Kapur

25 Nov, 2006 2302hrs IST

HUBLI: The project to supply drinking water 24x7 in select wards of Hubli is finally all set to be commissioned by mid-December.

It was initially planned to be operative by September-end.

However, it has hit a roadblock in four of the selected wards in Dharwad due to opposition from certain groups coupled with lack of awareness about the scheme and poor paying capacity of beneficiaries.

Funded by Asian Development Bank, the project is being implemented by Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (KUIDFC). This demonstration project has been taken up in Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum and Gulbarga.

In all, about 9,000 households are to be covered under the project in Hubli-Dharwad and nearly 4,000 each in Belgaum and Gulbarga. Some 2,500 connections will be given in Hubli initially, and the twin-cities are likely to be covered by March-end next year.

According to officials associated with the implementation of the project, nearly 400 connections have become operational in Belgaum where water is being supplied up to the third floor. However, the project is facing some resistance in Gulbarga also.

Project officials attribute apprehensions about acceptance of this novel scheme in the state to the inability of NGOs entrusted with the task of creating awareness about it among the potential beneficiaries.

They say that households covered under it feel that water supply was being privatised and that they may have to pay much more once it was implemented.

In fact, the builder will operate the project for two years before handing it over to the respective civic bodies.

Dismissing apprehensions about the project, a representative of the builder-operator told TOI that probably there has been less than desired coordination between KUIDFC, Water Board and the civic bodies.

However, he said the residents covered so far under the project in Belgaum were happy that they were getting round-the-clock water supply up to third floors, "which was just unthinkable in the past."

They also save on the power required to pump water to upper floors.

However, he agreed that the consumers may end up paying slightly more than earlier, but claimed that people would not mind the burden as it was more than compensated by the quality of service.

He said: "It would mean tension free regular supply at full pressure compared to the uncertain supply at odd hours as at present. There would be no need for storage and it would also curb wastage of water in the long run.