MAHARASHTRA

The Maharashtra government has decided to undertake a study across all power Plants in the state to determine how ageing and polluting coal-fired power facilities can be phased down in a systematic manner.

The announcement was made by state Environment minister Aaditya Thackeray during his visit to Nandgaon, a village 32 kilometres from Nagpur. Following repeated complaints of locals against fly-ash pollution from the state-run Khaparkheda power plant, the minister inspected the affected areas and assured the villagers ofNandgaonas well as Waregaon that the fly-ash ponds will be permanently shut. He added that Nandgaons farmlands, now covered in flyash, will be restored to its original state within the next 15 days.

The state governments decision is in line with the commitments made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the Conference of Parties (COP26) at Glasgow.

All colleges and universities in the state will have to establish a helpline to answer exam-related queries of students, the has directed.

The semester exams are scheduled by end of January and will be held online following which the government has directed the colleges to establish a mechanism to address the doubts of students.

Higher Education ministerUday Samanthad announced the shutdown of colleges and universities till February 15 and also said that the exams would also be conducted online.

Deaths in road crashes in Maharashtra increased by 17% in January-November 2022 as compared to the same period in pre-pandemic 2019. Over 13500 deaths and 30120 total road crashes were reported in January-November 2022. Very high fatalities were reported in Nashik rural (825), Pune rural (794) and Ahmednagar (770) this year. With newer potentially high speed road being built in the state, such as the recently launched Samruddhi Expressway, the priority should be to improve safety and manage speeds, experts said.

For state roads, a combined approach of electronic enforcement and manual enforcement– in such a way that the time and place of enforcement are unpredictable– will create a lasting impact on driving behaviour. World over, sustained and evidence-based ‘Anytime Anywhere Enforcement’ has proven to be an effective intervention in reducing road crash fatalities.

The silver lining for Mumbai was that crashes and deaths both reduced by at least 36% in January-November 2022 as compared to the same period in pre-pandemic 2019. Over 1600 total crashes and 259 fatalities were reported in the city in January-November 2022. Reduction in fatalities could be due to ongoing infrastructure works and reduction of overall speed levels to non-fatal levels, besides installing speed cameras at strategic locations, experts said.

The stateschool Educationdepartment will introduce a single textbook formula from 2022-23 onwards to reduce the weight ofschool bagscarried by students every day.
This will be introduced in Std I and will be implemented for all primary classes later. The four subjects taught in Std I,English,Marathi,mathsand play and learn, have been integrated into a single textbook per four semesters. Hence, instead of carrying all four subject textbooks, the student needs to carry only the integrated textbook, part 1, 2, 3 or 4, as per the semester.

Gosavi said that from the academic year 2022-23, the integrated bilingual textbook would be rolled out for Std I students in the entire state. This will then be done for Std II and so on. We will also incorporate the changes as per the New Education Policy, whenever it is implemented. We have received excellent feedback from teachers using this textbook. The integrated activities are also loved by the students, he added.

In a bid to motivate tourists to visit a city or state after seeing it in a movie and encourage states to make their land conducive to film shoots, the centralMinistry of Tourismin association with the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B) organised a symposium in Mumbai on Monday, proposing a film promotion office in the chief ministers office for timely shooting permissions and a model film facilitation policy that all states should follow.

Although the I&B ministry set up a Film Facilitation Office in Delhi in 2015 that helped 120 international filmmakers from 27 countries to shoot in India since its formation, I&B secretaryApurva Chandrapointed at that only 70 domestic films made it necessary for various states to ease shoots and clearances.

Chandra said that the government would soon frame a Draft Model Film Facilitation Policy based on policies that 14 states have come up with that all other states could adopt.

Indian government and the Asian (ADB) signed a 300-million-dollar loan on to expand rural connectivity in Maharashtra.

Loan agreement was signed as additional financing in order to scale up improvement of rural connectivity.

Additional financing for the Maharashtra Rural Connectivity Improvement Project will help in improving additional 1,100 rural roads and 230 bridges with total length of 2,900 kilometres in 34 districts of the state.

It is an ongoing project in Maharashtra that was approved in August 2019 with 200-million-dollar financing. The project is already maintaining and improving the condition and safety of 2,100 kilometres of rural roads.

New project is expected to generate 3.1 million person-days of EMPLOYMENT for local communities. 25 percent of the jobs will be for Women, over the construction and maintenance periods. Under the project, a gender action plan has been prepared in order to focus on capacity development of women workers so that they get benefit from semiskilled and unskilled labour opportunities.

This project by the will facilitate planning of the agricultural sector by giving definite statistics about how much area is under which crop. It will also help the Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture department to provide benefits to account holders for schemes payable for specific crops such as Irrigation“>Drip Irrigation or Sprinkler Irrigation. The survey will also be beneficial to estimate the area under cultivation and yield of paddy, Cotton, gram and tur procurement schemes at Basic Prices.