Hubli Airport: Land would be acquired within a month, says DC

Hubli Airport: Land would be acquired within a month, says DC

TNN, Oct 19, 2010, 10.09pm IST

HUBLI: The Dharwad district administration, which is trying hard to complete the land-acquisition process towards the expansion of Hubli airport so that it can hand over the land to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for development, has sought an immediate assistance of Rs 100 crore.

DC Darpan Jain told reporters on Monday that several hurdles in completing the land-acquisition process had been cleared and about 99% of the land owners had given their consent to part with their land.

He expressed confidence that the entire land-acquisition process would be completed within a month. "We have sought a grant of Rs 100 crore to compensate the land owners, and we expect to receive the same from the government shortly," he added.

Jain said the survey for laying four-lane road between Hubli and Dharwad had been completed and tender bids on the Rs 174-crore project would be opened on October 26.

Shettar lays foundation stone

Shettar lays foundation stone

TNN, Oct 18, 2010, 10.32pm IST

HUBLI: Dharwad district minister Jagadish Shettar has said the upcoming sports complex plays a vital role in the making Hubli-Dharwad, collectively a mega city.

Speaking after laying a foundation stone for a sports complex at the Gymkhana Grounds here on Monday, he said north Karnataka has sporting talent in abundance, "but lack of government will to create proper infrastructure is proving to be a dampener". "Because of this, sportspersons with sound background are making their own arrangements to compete in top sporting events, while others who are poor go unnoticed," he added.

Shettar appreciated the efforts of Karnataka Gymkhana Association (KGA) for building the complex without much help from the government. "Efforts are being made to build an indoor stadium at Heggeri Grounds, and also to complete the work on a pavilion at KSCA Stadium in Rajnagar," he added.

Appreciating the efforts of KGA, MP Pralhad Joshi said there will be less scope for confusion in the development works taken up under PPP model and there will be a sense of ownership about the property among the public.

Highlighting the need to improve sports infrastructure in the twin cities, DC Darpan Jain hailed KGA for voluntarily building a sports complex. Jain also expressed happiness over putting the land to optimal utilization, at least after 90 years of its being handed over by the government to KGA.

Stating that there is a lot of sporting talent in the region, Jain said there is a huge inflow of students into the twin cities needing good sports-related infrastructure. The DC requested KGA authorities to identify the poor but talented sportspersons and train them.

Indoor stadium to be ready soon

DHARWAD:Indoor stadium to be ready soon

GURURAJ JAMKHANDI, TNN, Oct 11, 2010, 09.38pm IST

DHARWAD: The indoor stadium at Dharwad for which the foundation stone had been laid eight years ago is finally getting ready for the use of sportspersons. The jinxed stadium has seen several obstacles before being dedicated to the public. If everything goes according to the plan the stadium should be available for use latest by November end.

Deputy commissioner Darpan Jain, who visited the indoor stadium near R N Shetty stadium here, expressed confidence that the work will be completed in six weeks. When done, the stadium will have a seating capacity of 350, floodlight and generator to ensure uninterrupted power supply.

It was the dream of sports lovers in Dharwad to have an indoor stadium in the city to ensure that the sports activity does not get disrupted for a major part of the year due to rain.

The plan for the stadium was prepared way back in 2001 and the foundation stone was laid in August 2002.

The construction work was assigned to Karnataka Land Army but in the absence of funds flowing in, the work did not progress much.

Meanwhile, the 70-feet wall of the stadium collapsed on January 26, 2008 injuring one person. The mishap occurred when thousands of people had gathered to celebrate Republic Day at the R N Shetty stadium which is just a few meters away from the indoor stadium. The then DC M S Srikar had ordered an inquiry into the incident. A team of experts arrived from Bangalore on February 7, 2008 to find the cause of the collapse and reported that negligence on the part of construction agency had been responsible for the mishap.

DC Darpan Jain said the well-equipped stadium has come up at a cost of Rs 2.5 crore. Jain informed that proposals have been sent to the government to sanction Rs 3.50 crore to develop a synthetic track at R N Shetty Stadium, and Rs 1 crore to construct a sports hostel.

The Sports Authority of India (SAI) has proposed to construct a complex at the Karnatak University premises, and the varsity has given the approval in principle to provide land for this purpose. All facilities will be provided here to conduct sports activities regularly.

Mangalore, Dharwad can boast of science centres soon

Mangalore, Dharwad can boast of science centres soon

TNN, Oct 9, 2010, 05.24am IST

BANGALORE: More and more students in Karnataka are keen on pursuing a career in science. In view of this, the National Council of Science Museums (NCSM) will start science centres in Dharwad and Mangalore for Rs 8.5 crore each.

NCSM director G S Rautela on Friday said the Council plans to start 13 science centres across India by 2012. Two ones will come up in Dharwad and Mangalore. "There is high interest among students towards science in Karnataka. In fact, we have the highest number of pending proposals from the state. Science centres will be set up in Mysore, Haveri, Tumkur, Gadag, Raichur and Bidar in phases," Rautela said.

Among the 26 science museums in the country, Bangalore-based Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum (VITM) attracts the second highest number of visitors each year, he said. Kolkata Science City gets 1.4 million visitors while VITM attracts around 9 lakh visitors every year.

This year's edition of the national student science seminar was held in Bangalore where 35 students from all states/UTs presented views on `India and world science: Are we there?'. Participating schools will be given a Newtonian telescope developed by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore.

NOBEL PRIZES CEREMONY

To encourage schoolchildren to pursue careers in science, the council plans to send four students from different parts of the country to attend the Nobel prize ceremony every year.

Rautela said the council is in talks with the Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation to allow high school kids from India to attend the ceremony. "We already have a programme to send four children every year to Korea Science Festival. We have also send bright high school students to Nasa. Now, we want to choose four students from different zones of the country and send them to the Nobel prize ceremony," he said.

Traffic police go hi-tech with e-challan

Traffic police go hi-tech with e-challan

Vincent D'Souza, TNN, Oct 6, 2010, 10.14pm IST

HUBLI: On several occasions, traffic cops have found themselves on the other side of the law, by faking the challan book. But that is just impossible now in the twin cities, as the Hubli-Dharwad police commissionerate has now gone hi-tech.

For the first time in the country, e-challan machines have been introduced to do away with all kinds of manipulations and to bring in transparency in penalizing traffic violators. A total of 10 units of e-challan or handheld machines developed by Hubli-based Trinity Technologies and Software Solutions Private Limited, is being used by the traffic cops in twin cities for the past few weeks. The process of obtaining another 12 machines is on, traffic ACP Sanjeev M Patil told `The Times of India.'

He said this advanced technology will save cops a lot of time, as it would take 3-5 minutes for cops to manually note all necessary details such as type of vehicle, registration number, name of owner, fine amount etc. The e-challan machine, which has printers attached to it will generate the receipt instantly on punching the violation code.

Also, the total number of cases booked and amount of fine collected on a particular day will be known at the end of the day with just a click of a button. Earlier, it used to take at least half an hour for the cops to add figures from the manual receipts.

Patil said at the end of the day, the cops operating e-challan machines will transfer the data into the computer at the police station, which will be then moved into the central server located at the commissioner's office. The process of the adopting GPRS technology is on and once it is done, data will be directly stored in the central server without wires.

The user-friendly device will also help police improve their image, as there is no scope for public to doubt them regarding the amount of fine. They will not have to ask a series of questions or bargain with the police before paying up for the violation. Patil said the number of cases booked has also gone up by 30% since the introduction of e-challans.

The new device also has the provision to issue court notices and has a ISD card reader to detect smart cards. The software developer, Rajneesh Ganjiyal, said there is scope for further modification of the device.