MAHARASHTRA

MahaRERA declares 407 projects lapsed in Maharashtra

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Real estate regulatorMahaRERAhas declared 407 projects across the state lapsed in 2021 after their validity of registration expired. The lapsed list includes around 23 projects in the Aurangabad division alone.

As per rules, a promoter must not advertise, market, book, sell or offer for sale, or invite people to purchase any plot, apartment, or building in any of these projects.

The MahaRERA came into force on May 1, 2017.Maharashtrawas one of the few states that brought ongoing projects under the Act, the Credai officials said, adding that a majority of these 407 projects were from the pre-MahaRERA time and were classified as ongoing projects.

Maharashtra’s onion exports up by 40% in 8 months

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Though the onions farmers are having a tough time due to the drop in prices of the produce in the wholesale markets acrossMaharashtra, the state has managed to improve its export figures for the first eight months of the financial year 2022-23.

As per thestate economic survey, Maharashtra has exported around 8 lakh tonne of onions between April and November of the current financial year, earning foreign currencies amounting to Rs 1,590 crore. The export from the state for the April-Nov period of the current fiscal is 40% more than the figures for the corresponding months of the last fiscal (2021-22).
The data assumes significance as the Opposition parties, during the ongoing session of the assembly, are constantly demanding Centre’s intervention to boost export of onions.

The state contributes around 50% of the country’s total onion export, while Nashik district contributes to around 80% of export from Maharashtra. The state had exported 5.78 tonne of onions during the 2021-22 fiscal, earning foreign currencies amounting to Rs 1,400 crore.

In the financial year 2020-21, the state exported 7.96 lakh tonne of onions, earning foreign currencies amounting to Rs 1,515 crore.

Policy for 38 Sainiki schools in Maharashtra to boost military enrolment

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The 38SainikiSchools inMaharashtrahave enrolled nearly 11,500 students in secondary sections, but when it came to these students taking admission todefenceinstitutes, the aim in setting up these schools, has not been up to expectations.

The Maharashtra State Council of Education Research and Training (MSCERT) has decided to survey all these schools and find out what has been lacking and frame a new policy. They hope to ensure a maximum number of students to join the DEFENCE Services.

The schools provide military education but a review by the education department revealed that their performance in the last few years after their establishment was unsatisfactory.

Military schools in the state are residential schools and are fully subsidised from the year of approval.

Last year, the Union Government decided to set up 100 new Sainiki schools for girls to join the armed forces and contribute to national security.

Maharashtra eyes Rs 1 lakh crore investment in electric vehicle manufacturing in 10-12 years

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The state is eyeing an of Rs 1 lakh crore in the n ext10-12 years in theelectric vehicle(EV) manufacturing sector, the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) CEO P Anbalagan.

Anbalagan said the main investments in this sector would be in the fourcities Nashik, Au rangabad, Pune and Mumbai and to som e extent in Nagpur. He said the MIDC had a llotted 75-acre to a US-based EV manufacturing firm at Talegaon in Pune.

This firm will be investing around Rs 3,000 crore. Anbalagan, who said e-vehicles are the future, said 22% of the entire automobile Manufacturing Sector in India is based in Maharashtra.
Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Aurangabad are the cities where a bulk of the automobiles are manufactured. Therefore, the State Government is making efforts to promote EV manufacturing in these four cities.

Maharashtra education department launches 100-day drive to restore reading habit in pupils

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A 100-day campaign launched by the state Education department in government schools hopes to bring back the reading habit among students of standards I to VIII.

The campaign is planned to improve language development by creating an enduring interest in reading and writing with comprehension.

Visiting libraries to playing word games, reading poetry and finding information regarding Famous Personalities are among several efforts to boost the return to the habit that has been lost to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Maharashtra State Council of Education Research and Training has drawn up plans for each class to follow over the next three months to steer reading activities.

9 crore voters on Maharashtra electoral rolls, 10.5 lakh fewer than a year ago

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Maharashtra has 9 crore voters according to the final electoral roll published Thursday, ahead of the spate of civic polls expected in state. It is 10.5 lakh lower than in January 2022, but has shown recovery of 4.4 lakh since November 2022, when the last draft was published.

Officials say the number of voters has reduced over the past year due to multiple factors, including Migration and a major purging of duplicate entries. “We examined 40 lakh duplicate entries, of which 16 lakh were deleted.

Of the total voters, 4.7 crore are men, 4.3 crore Women and 4,735 voters are transgender. Nearly 6.7 lakh are people with disabilities. Mumbai has 96.3 lakh voters, of which 71.8 lakh are in the suburbs and 24.4 lakh in the island city.

In the latest state electoral roll published, the 30-39 year age category has the highest number of voters accounting for 2 crore while the 40-49 category follows close behind with 1.9 crore. However, the 18-19 year age group accounts for the lowest number of voters, with just 6.7 lakh, the data shows.

In the 20-29 year age group, the number of voters were also much below the Population of the cohort, the data showed. While 20-29-year-olds account for 18% of the state’s population, the number of registered voters account for 12.8% of the population. This means 30% of the 20-29 year age group have not registered to vote.

Maharashtra cabinet clears Adventure Tourism Policy; Aaditya Thackeray says tourists safety topmost priority

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The Maharashtra cabinet cleared the Adventure Tourism Policy for the state, under which a regulatory framework will be drafted for such activities keeping in mind the safety of the tourists.

According to the policy, operators in the state who want to conduct these activities will have to register themselves with the state tourism department by fulfilling several criteria. We want these activities to be conducted legally by registered operators with all the safety guidelines in place. The safety of the tourists is the topmost priority, said Aaditya Thackeray, tourism minister.

To empower patients, state to relook Clinical Estab Act

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The state has reinitiated efforts to introduce theClinical Establishments Act(CEA), 2010, aiming to enforce minimum standards for healthcare facilities and provide patients with rights and effective grievance redress mechanisms after several unsuccessful attempts since 2014.
Directorate of Health Services (DHS) has asked all district surgeons, district health officials and heads to hold discussions on CEA and Bombay Nursing Home Act that currently administers medical facilities.

The Act was initially passed in 2010 for Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh, and Union territories (excluding Delhi) to establish a framework for overseeing health facilities. Several states later adopted the Act, tailoring it to their specific requirements. InMaharashtra, a serious attempt was made in 2014, but it was put on hold with a change in government. Later, a committee was formed in 2018, but controversy arose due to the lack of representation from civil societies. Discussions to introduce the Act resurfaced during the pandemic but were eventually abandoned.

The government of Maharashtra State announced the establishment of an area in the Amboli region of the Ghats in the western Ghats of Sindhudurg region, where a rare freshwater fish has been discovered as a heritage of biodiversity. Highlights:

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Tejas Thackeray, the son of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, is a wildlife researcher. The team of Tejas discovered a new freshwater fish species named in Schistura Hiranyakeshi near Amboli in Sawantwadi tehsil, Sindhudurg region.

The issued a notice declaring the Amboli area as a Biodiversity heritage. Schistura is a colorful little fish that lives in water and flows through it with a lot of Oxygen.

Previously, the state government of Maharashtra has declared the glory of Allapalli (Gadchiroli district), Landor Khori Park (Jalgaon), Ganesh Khind (Pune), and mystrica swamp vegetation in Sindhudurg district as biodiversity heritage.

Tejas Thackeray and co-authors published the discovery of freshwater fish species in the October 2020 edition of the International Journal of Ichthyology.

Maharashtra govt nod to hire ‘professors of practice’

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colleges could have ‘professors of practice’ from the next academic session, with Maharashtra set to become one of the first states to adopt University Grants Commission guidelines on introducing the novel faculty position.

Of the 28 government colleges in the state, only eight have the post of ‘professors’-54 posts in all. Since the UGC norms recommend only 10% of the sanctioned posts to be filled by ‘professors of practice’, the state is planning to fill up five such posts. Apart from two in Mumbai, one post each will be filled in government colleges in Aurangabad, Nagpur and Amravati.

An official said the plan was to fill these posts for the 2023-24 academic session. He added that colleges were expected to advertise for the posts and fill them up at the earliest.