Stop meddling in Kashmir: Owaisi to Pakistan

Asking Pakistan to stop meddling in Kashmir affairs, AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi said that the Valley was and will always be an integral part of India. In the same breath, he stressed on the need for a consistent policy for the region.

The Hyderabad MP said whether it was the Congress or the BJP at the Centre, they have “no policy, no vision” to bring normalcy back to the Valley. “I feel that there has to be a consistent policy on Kashmir, which unfortunately is lacking,” he said.

The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader was replying to a question during a panel discussion organised at the Telangana Jagruthi International Youth Leadership Conference which began here on Saturday. “The Kashmir problem cannot be treated in a James Bond or a Rambo-style... Someone will have to show a statesman-like approach. There is alienation and things have to be done in a proper way,” he said.

Pune's planned HCMTR

The Pune Municipal Corporation is planning to introduce credit bonds for executing the high capacity mass transit route which is also known as the inner ring road. Saurabh Rao, Pune municipal commissioner, has assured to execute the plan in three years.

Rao said that PMC had made the budgetary provision of ₹211 crore for HCMRT in the financial year 2019-20 and is planning to introduce credit bonds for the same. “PMC is working in a way that there would be no need to invest civic body’s money in this project. Instead of paying funds for acquiring land, PMC will give credit notes to the landowners. The landowners or developers would use these notes with PMC in future instead of paying for building permissions,” he said.

This project would need
~5,096 crore funds out of which
~1,550 crore will be needed for land acquisition. The HCMTRs length is 36 km and the entire road will be elevated. It would have 6 lanes and two will be dedicated for Bus Rapid Transit System. Even PMC is planning to raise cycle tracks along this road, he said. The standing committee of PMC had appointed a financial consultant for HCMTR project.

Meanwhile, HCMTR was planned 30 years ago in 1987. The main purpose of the road was to act as a ring road, but the civic body was unable to execute it.

Now, PMC has finally decided to go ahead with the project and construct the HCMTR, which will also be known as the inner ring road.

HCMTR will be completely elevated and the route will be 36 km in length, with a width of 24 km. For implementing the project, 77 hectares of land is required, and out of it, 35 hectares is already in PMC’s possession. The remaining land is owned by private parties.

The road will connect Bopodi, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Senapati Bapat road, Paud phata, Karve road, Dattawadi, Sarasbaug, Shankar Sheth road, Nehru road, Lullanagar, Ramwadi, Mundhwa, Vimannagar and Vishrantwadi.

Worli promenade to get 2.8 km longer after reclamation for Mumbai coastal road

The BMC circulated its entire plan for reclamation of land along Worli Sea Face in the public domain, to reassure citizens that the project will not disturb the existing promenade. On the contrary, it will get 2.8 km longer.

The blueprint includes reclamation of land for the coastal road project, construction of a new promenade adjoining the coastal road, connecting the two stretches of the promenade currently divided by Bandra-Worli Sea Link, construction of a bus terminus and a two-tiered underground parking space.

The BMC’s coastal road officials said they have explained to residents that they will retain the existing promenade and construct another, 2.8 km-long one, after reclaiming the seabed. The BMC said it will connect the proposed and existing promenades and that the joint stretch will be 4.5 km long.

Worli residents and Worli Walkers’ Association have planned a protest against the project at Mumbai Marathon on Sunday, though they promise it will not come in the way of the event. Last month, the BMC began to barricade around 300 meters of the south side of the promenade. Residents wanted a written assurance that the existing promenade would not be disturbed. The BMC has likewise circulated the blueprint and promised to restore the existing promenade after the coastal road work is complete and said only a portion of it will be taken up for the project.

Locals are also worried about the entry and exit route of buses from the proposed bus terminus on reclaimed land.

The BMC is constructing a 10 km coastal road that will start from Marine Drive and connect the Worli end of the sea link.

Recently, residents held a meeting with local political representatives and BMC officials. Locals said the BMC did not explain details of the plan.

Investment-friendly’ Maha to market itself at Davos

Maharashtra government has proposed to aggressively market its pre-eminence in attracting domestic and foreign direct investments. The state will be represented by the industries secretary Satish Gavai, Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation CEO P Anbalagan and City and Industrial Development Corporation vice chairman and managing director Lokesh Chandra. The state government has proposed to aggressively market Maharashtra’s pre-eminence in attracting domestic and foreign direct investments.

The team will also invite global investors to contribute towards making Maharashtra a trillion dollar economy by 2025 and make the state a global investment and manufacturing hub.

State industries department said, “The government will put forward a strategy before the global investors to retain leadership position in industrial investment by providing conducive environment, sustain high levels of employment generation primarily through promotion of micro, small and medium enterprises and promote regionally balanced, environmentally sustainable and inclusive industrial growth.” He informed that the state has set an ambitious target of attaining manufacturing sector growth of 12 per cent to 13 per cent, attract investments worth Rs.10 lakh crore and create employment opportunities for 60 lakh by 2023.

Infrastructure and Logistics Federation of India President Sushil Jiwarajka said that the state government should emphasise on the huge investments being made in infrastructure projects like Mumbai Ahmedabad bullet train, Mumbai Metro expansion, trans-harbour link, coastal road, Navi Mumbai airport. These are examples of world-class projects involving multi-billion dollar investments which will get completed in the next couple of years.

“However, access to world-class education, health care and highly skilled and trained manpower will differentiate Maharashtra from the other competing states. This will provide a competitive advantage to potential investors,’’ said Jiwarajka.

Luxury car sales slow down

Luxury car sales have decelerated. With the stock market remaining volatile through most of last year and liquidity pressure growing, reluctant buyers stayed away from new purchases or upgrades, leading to 5% growth in volumes in 2018 against a 17% surge in the previous year. Luxury car makers like Mercedes-Benz and Audi are a worried lot, especially as the liquidity crunch is impacting operations of many of their customers.

Stretches on 29 highways to serve as emergency airstrips

The Centre plans to set up 29 airstrips on National Highways at strategic locations for emergency landings by fighter aircraft, according to the transport ministry.

The proposed strips have been planned on highways and roads near the international border in the states of Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Manipur and West Bengal. Three are planned on highways connecting Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh — all Maoist-affected areas. Emergency strips are also planned in the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

The ministry of road transport and highways, in 2016, announced the formation of an inter-ministerial joint committee with the ministry of defence and the Indian Air Force to look into the feasibility of setting up these strips and to arrive at the technical details. IAF and the National Highways Authority of India were tasked with the site survey and inspection. “The work of site survey and inspection as well as the planning and bidding of the Emergency Landing Facilities are at different stages. The completion period of work has been kept as eight months,” union minister of state for road transport and highways Mansukh Mandaviya informed Lok Sabha on January 7.

In November, Mandaviya announced that the Centre has identified 13 roads across states where emergency landings can take place. Eleven of the roads were under the National Highways Authority of India while the other two were state highways. According to the ministry of road transport and highways, only one such strip is operational — on the Lucknow- Agra Expressway in Uttar Pradesh.

Out of the 29 proposed stretches by IAF, bidding has begun for strips on three highways — from Bijbehera to Chinar Bagh in Jammu & Kashmir, Kharagpur in West Bengal to Keonjhar in Odisha and Nellore to Ongole in Andhra Pradesh.

Cabinet selects Infosys to implement next gen IT-filings system

IT major Infosys has been selected to implement the next generation system for processing income tax return filings, with the Union Cabinet sanctioning an estimated Rs.4,241.97 crore for the project.

The move will help in bringing down the income tax return processing time to one day and hence speed up refunds.


Briefing media about the decision, Goyal said the processing time at present for ITR is 63 days and it will come down to one day after implementation of the project. He said the project is expected to be completed in 18 months and will be launched after three months of testing.

Infosys, he said, has been selected to implement the project after the bidding process.

The current system, he said, has been a success and new project will be more tax friendly.

The e-filing and Centralised Processing Centre projects have enabled end-to-end automation of all processes within the Income Tax Department using various innovative methods to provide taxpayer services and to promote voluntary compliance.

The Cabinet also sanctioned a consolidated cost of Rs.1,482.44 crore for the existing CPC-ITR 1.0 project up to 2018-19.

Goyal also informed that tax refunds worth Rs.1.83 trillion have been issued so far in the current fiscal.

The decision will ensure transparency and accountability besides faster processing of returns and issue of refunds to the taxpayers' bank account directly without any interface with the Income Tax Department.

As per an official release, the broad objectives of the integration project include, faster and accurate outcomes for taxpayer, enhancing user experience at all stages, improving taxpayer awareness and education through continuous engagement.

Besides, it will also be promoting voluntary tax compliance and managing outstanding demand.