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India Gazette
2 hours ago
- General
- India Gazette
AI-171 crash: Single-window system for issuing death certificates, says Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner
Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], June 15 (ANI): Gujarat State administration had arranged for the death certificates of those who died in the recent Air India plane crash to be issued directly at the hospital, sparing grieving families the need to visit multiple offices, Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner Banchha Nidhi Pani said on Sunday. Further, Pani said, that the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, which is probing the crash of the AI-171 flight bound for London that crashed in a residential area in Meghaninagar including the BJ Medical college complex, on June 12 shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad international airport, has successfully retrieved the aircraft's black box. '....the black box had to be recovered. The black box is either in the front or in the back. Fortunately, in this case, the tail end (of the plane) was not destroyed, and it was stuck in the first building. The AAIB team requested that cranes, labourers, and engineers be provided to recover the black box. After this, the Black box was recovered...' the Ahmedabad Municipal commissioner said. 'After that, we ensured that people should not go to offices for death certificates. A single-window system was created, and the death certificates were issued then and there,' he said. On Thursday, the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed shortly after takeoff. There were 242 people on board, including 230 passengers and 12 crew members. Of the passengers, 241 died in the crash. The lone survivor, identified as Vishwashkumar Ramesh, a British national of Indian origin, sustained injuries and is undergoing treatment. '101 fire vehicles were there, more than 100 ambulances, including 35 ambulances from private trusts. Around 46 different earthmover equipment, including JCB, excavators, and Cranes, were there. The entire operation was carried out in a swift, coordinated and quick manner. We found that the wing of the aircraft was obstructing the movement of ambulances in the internal took a decision to remove this obstruction. For a green corridor for the ambulances, this wing had to be removed... The operation had to be continued in the evening, so the light arrangement had to be done. There were more than 100 LEDs, flood lights, with 5 DG sets, so that there should not be any problem as far as lighting arrangement is concerned...' the Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner said. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) on Friday confirmed the recovery of the Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR), commonly referred to as the black box, from the rooftop of a building at the site of the Air India Flight AI-171 crash in Ahmedabad. The AACB has launched a full-scale investigation into the crash, with over 40 staff from the Gujarat State Government joining efforts to support the Ministry of Civil Aviation teams on the ground. The black box, a critical piece of evidence, will be analysed to determine the cause of the tragic crash that claimed the lives of 241 people onboard, including former Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani. The investigation is underway, and the recovered DFDR is expected to provide vital insights into the events leading up to the disaster. Meanwhile, Air India said on Saturday that it will provide an interim payment of Rs 25 lakh each to the families of the deceased and to the survivor of the plane crash in Ahmedabad to help address immediate financial needs in addition to the Rs one crore support already announced by Tata Sons. Air India said it stands in solidarity with the families of the passengers who tragically lost their lives in the recent accident. (ANI)
Time of India
28-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Big data, bigger bucks: AMC sees cash in Smart City info, properties
Ahmedabad: The civic body is out on an asset monetisation drive. The assets it plans to cash in on include its properties as well as the vast repository of data generated under Smart City projects. This includes citizen tax data, traffic patterns, utility consumption records, and municipal service usage statistics – a goldmine of information for private companies and research organizations. For this, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) quietly set up a nine-member Asset Monetization Cell headed by commissioner Banchha Nidhi Pani. A circular issued in March this year made the cell operational from March 19. "The nine-member cell will review digital data collected by Smart City Ahmedabad Development Limited to determine which datasets can be commercially sold," said a senior AMC official. The committee includes deputy municipal commissioners for projects, estate, finance, and legal, along with the estate officer, head of the non-tax revenue department, chief city planner, chief accountant and deputy chief accountant. A key focus of the committee will be on strategizing the monetization of 4,113 leased properties with an collective worth exceeding an estimated Rs 2,000 crore, including high-value assets like the Municipal Market on CG Road. In Sep 2024, AMC had also proposed a draft City Data Policy which sought to create an open govt data platform to facilitate responsible data sharing among citizens, govt agencies, and private entities. "This cell will also explore the development of reserved plots through public-private partnership (PPP) models and consider renting out municipal school premises during non-operational hours," said the official. Also, there are plans to allow private buses to operate on BRTS corridors as a new revenue stream. The committee's mandate is to identify and implement strategies to increase non-conventional income from AMC's movable and immovable assets, such as public buildings, under-bridge spaces, parking plots, advertising sites, machinery, vehicles, apart from digital data. The committee will meet every 15 days to review progress. "It will also develop a special standard operating procedure for monetization and explore revenue opportunities from newly completed development projects," the official added. The committee can even assess the feasibility of renting out municipal equipment and vehicles, and evaluate the legal and financial implications, including tax and GST responsibilities, when assets are sold, leased, or developed through PPP models.
Time of India
26-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation's road plan aims to reuse plastic waste
Ahmedabad: In a renewed war against plastic pollution, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is digging up an old idea — using waste plastic to build roads. A decade after its initial trial from Nagari Hospital to Law Garden, AMC will once again test plastic-infused asphalt. Municipal commissioner Banchha Nidhi Pani has asked engineers to trial the use of single-use and multi-layer plastic in road construction. The revival comes as part of an ambitious 'Ending Plastic Pollution Globally' campaign to curb single-use plastic and promote eco-friendly alternatives. From fines to awareness drives and from school competitions to cash-for-trash bottle banks, AMC is going all out ahead of World Environment Day to be observed on June 5. Alongside road experiments, AMC has rolled out a series of strict anti-plastic measures. These include ward-level enforcement of the plastic ban, and awareness drives promoting eco-friendly alternatives like cloth or paper bags, glass bottles, bamboo toothbrushes, and recyclable containers. Additionally, a bottle bank will be set up to collect empty cold drink and mineral water bottles, with a system to compensate citizens who deposit empty bottles. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Trade Bitcoin & Ethereum – No Wallet Needed! IC Markets Start Now Undo A campaign will be launched for solid waste segregation, and strict fines will be imposed on those littering in public. Seminars will be organized to end the use of single-use plastic. Essay competitions will be held in educational institutions to raise awareness about the ban on single-use plastic and solid waste segregation. World Environment Day will be celebrated with extensive tree planting programmes. Regular checks at all bus terminals will be planned to enforce the ban on single-use plastic, and awareness will be spread on social media. Despite a five-year-old ban on plastic bags below 120 microns, single-use plastic continues to choke the city's waste stream. With new directives issued on May 19 and May 26, officials hope to make visible progress in reducing plastic waste in both streets and landfills.
Indian Express
04-05-2025
- Indian Express
Gujarat Hardlook: Chandola lake demolitions— a lakeside in hot water
Situated on the southern end of Ahmedabad and spanning an area of 109.6 hectares, Chandola Lake is, perhaps, the least documented of the three major lakes in the city. While much is known about the history of the Sultanate-era Kankaria lake, and Vastrapur lake, situated in the heart of the city, has seen several initiatives for its renovation, Chandola Lake – a British-period water body built for irrigation purposes — has largely been synonymous with the slums that began cropping up on its lakebed over the last several decades. Straddling the two worlds of Danilimda, a predominantly Muslim area, and the Hindu-dominated Isanpur, the lake shores have served as a home to vegetable vendors, casual labourers, scrap dealers and barbers who built their hutments and shops on the premises. An eyesore of the authorities for a long time, the area has seen occasional demolition drives to weed out suspected illegal Bangladeshi nationals. But nothing prepared the residents for what followed after the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22. On April 26, 890 inhabitants were picked up on suspicion of being Bangladeshis and paraded through the roads of Ahmedabad for four kilometres until they reached the Crime Branch headquarters in Jamalpur. Though a majority were let off after their Indian identity was confirmed, it brought little comfort for the residents as bulldozers started lining up outside the area on the night of April 28. On April 29, the bulldozers began their work. As many as 4,000 structures were razed, as claimed by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). Chandola Lake was meant to carry the waters of the Khari River that flows from Raipur village on the city's outskirts, through the Kharicut canal, which the British built in 1881, for irrigating paddy fields around it. For years, however, these channels have been clogged and the lake, which only fills up during excess rainfall, is split into three sections — two Nana (small) and the Mota (large) Chandola, the larger section drying up to form mudflats in summer. Over the years, as encroachments began coming up, the area came to be known as Chandola talav na chhapra. A section of the slum, known as 'Bangladeshi basti' or Bangalivaas, has been of particular interest to the police and seen minor crackdowns. Flattened On April 29, AMC's 74 bulldozers and 200 trucks cleared up 1.5 lakh square metres of land here — more than the original target of 1.25 lakh square metres as Municipal Commissioner Banchha Nidhi Pani had told The Indian Express. By May 1, the day the three-day demolition stopped, just 200 of 890 people detained from the area had been confirmed as 'ghuspaithiye' or illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, DCP Crime Ajit Rajian told The Indian Express, with the caveat that document verification remained underway. While Minister of State for Home, Harsh Sanghavi, has described this entire operation as a 'historic victory' for the Gujarat Police, the Ahmedabad Commissioner of Police GS Malik said everyone staying in that area was a 'land grabber'. The inhabitants got no relief from the Gujarat High Court either with their petition against the demolition being dismissed on the grounds that the area was a water body where no construction could be permitted. On May 2, the AMC began putting up pre-cast boundary walls along the cleared portion of the lake bed. An AMC official says that a survey would be conducted on the work done so far. According to a statement from AMC on Friday, 'In Phase-II, the police department and the AMC will jointly continue to remove encroachments in and around Mota and Nana Chandola lakes. A survey has been initiated. The electricity connections of the illegal residences have been ordered to be cut immediately. Different government departments will serve these residents notices. Those who don't vacate voluntarily will be booked as land grabbers by the Revenue Department.' My son has just given his Class 10 examinations. My electric meter was removed without informing us, and when my husband Dinesh was away at work Rekha Aud, a resident 'We are Indians' Nestled in the bylanes of the Isanpur side of the lake, amid various temples, are residences of people who claimed they were 'neither Pakistanis, nor Bangladeshis' and were yet evicted with less than two hours' notice. While acknowledging that there was encroachment on the lake, they claimed they have been living in the area for generations and deserve getting a notice in advance and 'an alternate place to sleep.' First they demolished my house; so we brought all our belongings here (to our scrap shops). They came and took that away as well. Where do we go now? Gauri Ramesh Dantani, a resident Though AMC insisted it had removed encroachments of only Bangladeshi nationals, scrap dealers on the main road told another story. Gauri Ramesh Dantani, who lost both her house and shop, says she has lived here with her family for more than 'three generations'. 'First, they demolished my house adjoining Bangalivaas; so, we brought all our belongings here (to our scrap shops). They came and took that away as well. Where do we go now?' Chhagan Chauhan, a 48-year-old vegetable vendor, says, 'I have been living here since I was seven.' He adds, 'They (terrorists) killed 26 people, and we are also very sad about it…The government can take action on Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, we will not protest… but we are Indians, we have not done anything to anyone.' Kailashben Jaiswal from Ayodhya tells The Indian Express, 'On April 30, they began disconnecting our electricity and stopped only when we all gathered in protest. They can demolish everything but our only request is that they give us some time…' The Indian Express learnt that power supply to the area had been cut off on April 28 when the demolitions began. By April 30, the meters had been taken away. An elderly woman with her belongings (Express/Bhupendra Rana) Among the residents who lost the electricity connection are Vijay and Sheetal Dantania, who live in a one-room house with their three children. Holding her infant at her hip, Sheetal says 'the government' cut their power and pulled out their electric meter from its box on April 30. Vijay showed the electricity bill in his name to prove he was a paying customer. Another resident, Dinesh, too, said he has proof that his electric connection was legal. National security angle Following the April 26 crackdown, police have lodged only one FIR in the case and arrested alleged slumlord Lalu Pathan alias Lalu Bihari from Rajasthan who, they claimed, was instrumental in Bangladeshi nationals settling in the area. One argument by Minister Sanghavi to justify the crackdown at Chandola was that four men had been arrested from here in 2022 for being part of a sleeper cell for Al Qaeda. In an affidavit before the HC, the Gujarat government listed out a range of 'criminal activities' in this area. Redevelopment, resettlement Chandola lakeside has remained a sore point for years with plans to redevelop it never actually taking off. The AMC budget for 2025-26 says that waterfront development will take place on the lakes, specifically mentioning that encroachers will be resettled. 'There is a need to rehabilitate those living in the untenable areas of lakes,' it adds. It further states, 'They (the homes) will be integrated into the PMAY -2 project…A total of 4,000 residences will be built at a cost of Rs 600 crore.' There has been no word on the resettlement since. What next Speaking on the plans to fill the lake, an AMC officer says, 'Chandola Lake is not just about demolitions. It is about development… we are thinking about how to put some water into the lake.' According to the officer, 'We will require 5,000 to 6,000 million litres. We are exploring whether this water can be brought from the Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) at Pirana.' According to an AMC document accessed by The Indian Express, a total of 37 of 171 lakes in Ahmedabad remain under encroachment. Officials admit that the demolition is not the end of their problem as those evicted were moving to other parts. A senior AMC official admits that this was a problem that had been set forth for consideration but there is no solution yet in sight. On further demolitions, the official says, 'We are exploring several options but demolitions will be done in the future after giving notices to local residents.' Meanwhile, Chhagan, the vegetable vendor, says a few officials came to his area on Sunday and said the 500-m settlement between Jogani Mata Mandir and Dashama Mata Mandir inside would be cleared on Monday, 10am. 'No survey, no notice. They just told us,' says Chhagan as he gathers his belongings. 'We have nowhere to go.'
Indian Express
29-04-2025
- Indian Express
Over 2,000 illegal hutments to be demolished at Chandola lake in Ahmedabad
Exactly 72 hours after police banged on the doors of people who were asleep, rounded up 890 of them and paraded them to the Crime Branch headquarters on suspicion of being illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) demolished parts of the slum area known as Chandola Talav na Chhapra on Tuesday. The residents scrambled to gather their few valuables and move out of the way of the approaching bulldozers. Speaking to The Indian Express on the demolitions around Chandola lake, Municipal Commissioner Banchha Nidhi Pani said, 'More than 2,000 residential encroachments will be removed and it will vacate more than 1.25 lakh sq m of land. More than 50 bulldozers and trucks accompanied by 500 estate department staffers along with medical staffers, fire department staffers and those from other departments are working at the scene. It has been carried out legally because water bodies are considered sacrosanct and cannot be encroached upon by any means.' Commissioner of Police Gyanender Singh Malik said on Monday that everyone was a land-grabber in the area, where the police crackdown took place at 3 am on April 26. 'Legally speaking, everyone who is staying in that area has been staying in something that is illegally constructed which means it is land-grabbing,' he told The Indian Express. A panic began at 7 pm on Monday, when the AMC parked bulldozers outside the area in anticipation of the upcoming action. Even as senior police officials remained incommunicado and Deputy Municipal Commissioner Riddhesh Raval of the estate department claimed ignorance of any such action, residents who had been released from detention after being verified as Indian citizens rushed to the nearby Isanpur police station to plead for time, but no officer was reportedly available to meet them. Early on Tuesday morning, the bulldozers began to roll into Bengalivaas in Siyasatnagar inside the Chandola Talav na Chhapra. Locals said they had no idea how many hutments had been demolished but several people were seen packing their valuables on handcarts and cycle-carts and moving out of the area as the bulldozers moved in. The encroachments have been removed between the greater and smaller Chandola lakes, which Municipal Commissioner Pani termed critical. He said, 'Since 2010, we have seen continuous encroachment on the lake. Because the water was being stopped and the capacity of the lake was being reduced further.' Crime Branch officials said they had destroyed a large bungalow of alleged land encroacher and slumlord Lalu Pathan alias Lalu Bihari and his son Fatehmahmood Lalu Pathan. Both of them were detained by the police. There are largely two types of illegal constructions civic bodies have to deal with. One is illegal additions made to buildings on privately owned land and the other is illegal structures built on government land. The action at Chandola Talav na Chhapra is of the second kind, where government land—the three interconnected Chandola lakes in Ahmedabad 's Danilimda area—was encroached on. Such operations, where police action is followed by a crackdown by the municipal authorities, are part of the whole-of-government approach taken against anti-social elements across Gujarat following violence in the Vastral area of Ahmedabad on Holi (March 13), when 14 miscreants went on a rampage with sticks and swords, hitting random people and destroying property on the roads. On Monday, DGP Vikas Sahay gave an account of the action carried out thus far, stating that the police had prepared a list of 7,157 anti-social elements across the state since the crackdown initiated in March. 'The Gujarat police has been conducting a strict drive against anti-social elements… Last month, all district police departments and city commissionerates were asked to prepare a list of anti-social elements within 100 hours. The list was prepared and action initiated as per the provisions of the law… About 7,157 persons have been identified and classified as anti-social… In coordination with various institutions, 372 demolitions of illegal structures have been initiated against these persons while 1,046 electricity connections have been snapped in coordination with the utility providers,' Sahay said.
