Gairsain to be the new summer capital for Uttarakhand

The Himalayan state of Uttarakhand is all set to make Gairsain in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand its new summer capital. Dehradun presently serves as the state capital. The demand for declaring Gairsain as the capital of the state has been gathering momentum since 1990s. Regional political outfits have carried out wide protests for over a decade to put pressure on ruling regimes to declare Gairsain as the capital. CM Trivendra Singh Rawat has dedicated the decision to activists who have been associated with the movement since early 1990s.

Gairsain is approximately 280 km away from Dehradun. The town of Gairsain lacks basic infrastructure and water scarcity remains a key problem as of now. The chief minister indicated that steps are being taken to address the deficiency.

Source: The Times of India   

Cap on surge pricing for app-based cab aggregators in Mumbai  

The Maharashtra Government has issued a Government Resolution (GR) to regulate surge pricing for app-based cab aggregators in Mumbai. In 2016, the state government had announced a proposed policy to regulate the pricing scheme of app-based cab services such as Ola and Uber in the Mumbai Metropolitan Area. As a result, a four-member committee under the chairmanship of retired IAS officer B C Khatua was formed in 2016 which submitted its report on October 10, 2017.

The committee recommended fixing the base fare between Rs 14 and 16 per km for three categories of aggregator cabs – regular, mid-sized and premium. The upper cap was fixed respectively at Rs 26, 32 and 38. As per the new GR, the cab aggregators can charge surge (peak) prices only up to three times of the base fares of the classic black & yellow top taxis, which is 14.85 per km at present. However, the auto-rickshaw union is not happy with the recommendations put forward by the Khatua Committee and is set to visit the transport ministry.

Source: The Indian Express

Kolkata Police to conduct training for bus drivers, conductors on gender sensitization

As part of its “Respect Women” campaign, Kolkata Police is all set to impart gender sensitization trainings to bus drivers, conductors, app-cabs and taxi drivers. Funds from the Nirbhaya Fund will be utilized for the same in order to make commute for women safe and secure in the city. Training will be held on weekends in batches and best performers will be awarded. A similar initiative has been undertaken by the Haryana Government also, where more than 10,000 bus drivers and conductors are undergoing gender sensitization training under the “Safe Gaadi” initiative by Haryana Roadways.

Source: The Times of India  

Mumbai the most forgetful city in Uber’s Lost and Found Survey 2020!

Mobile phones continued to be the most forgotten items in the Uber cabs in 2019, while Mumbai emerged as the most forgetful city for the first time as Uber published its Lost and Found Index 2020. The index analysed the collection of things left behind by riders in their fleet of cabs in 2019. Apart from mobile phones, camera, wallets, bags, keys, headphones were also highlighted as forgotten items in the index. Thursday and Friday emerged as the days, when riders tended to be most forgetful. Riders were also found to forget their items mostly during 1 pm to 3 pm and not during the early rush hours.

Prior to 2019, Bengaluru had won the title of most forgetful city for three years in a row. In 2019, Kolkata and Prayagraj were the second and third most forgetful cities.

Source: Livemint 

Nashik punishes water tax defaulters by snapping 100 water connections

The Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) has snapped 100 water connections of citizens, who have defaulted on the payment of water tax. The municipal body has set a target of annual tax collection of Rs 133 crore, out of which the body was able to collect only Rs 50 crore. NMC still has to collect Rs 85 crore with only 19 days remaining in the current financial year to end.

Spread over six divisions of NMC, there are 1.96 lakh water connections comprising of 1.88 lakh residential; 4,000 commercial and 4,000 non-commercial water connections. As per officials from the corporation, the high value customers in total account for dues worth more than Rs 41 crore.

Source: The Times of India

[Compiled by Rishabh Shrivastava]