MAHARASHTRA

Private vaccine centres in the state, currently holding an estimated 2 lakh doses and facing low turnout, have urged the government use their stock in the ongoing booster drive.

The Centre had announced free boosters for 75 days (from July 15). Private centres worry the drive will further reduce turnouts for the paid jab and have proposed a swap near-expiry doses in return for fresh vials.

The private sector has demanded an exchange of Vaccines by either compensation through cost or by replacing it with fresh stock to prevent wastage

Of the total arrears, Bhandup zone which includesBhandup-Mulund,Thane and Vashi(Navi Mumbai) had arrears from residential consumers to the tune of Rs 137 crore.

At the same time, the Kalyan zone which includes Dombivli-Kalyan up to Karjat/ Kasara and Vasai-Virar, Palghar had pending electricity bill payments of over Rs 350 crore from residential consumers, sources said. This included Rs 183 crore in Kalyan-Dombivli and Rs 103 crore in Vasai-Virar belt.

As thetollrose to 209, the state cabinet is likely to announce a special compensation package for Konkan and Western Maharashtra region that were worst hit. The compensation will be on the lines of that announced during the Nisarg and Tauktae .

The state governments compensation proposal to the Centre for rain-related losses last year was over Rs 3,721 crore. The State Government had sanctioned Rs 4,375 crore from its coffers for the affected districts. The central norms for compensation were drafted in 2015. The state has been hiking the norms and giving compensation, therefore a large burden falls on the state.

The will oust private operator M/s Garuda Amusement Park (Nagpur) Pvt Ltd, and develop Ambazari garden tourism project, cultural and memorial centre for Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar itself, deputy chief minister and guardian ministerDevendra Fadnavistold followers of Dr Ambedkar.

The people staging an agitation for this at the garden for the last 157 days have planned a rally from Variety Square to Samvidhan Square on Monday to mark the victory of their stir.

Expressing concerns over the treatment meted out to widows, the members campaigning for protection of rights and dignity of widows have demanded that a law be enacted for the purpose.

The state convener of ‘Vidhva Mahila Sanman va Sanrakshan’ campaign, Raju Shirsath along with others have presented a memorandum to district collectorate appealing to take urgent steps for enacting the law.

The members said that the agitation would continue in the peaceful and democratic manner till it gathered a pace and became a momentum or the government enacted the law for the protection of widows.

A separate department to address all issues pertaining to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has been demanded by the SME Chamber of India andMaharashtraIndustry Development Association.

The representation cited harassment and extortion threats the SMEs face from local goons, harassment by Mathadi kamgaars and other unregistered labour unions, transporters, recruitment agencies run by politicians, and interference from politicians and party workers, who disturb business activities and manufacturing operations.

A separate department could help set up a mechanism to promote exports and revival of sick units, and enable sale of shut units.

The Centre on Monday launched the horticultureCluster Development Programme(CDP) in order to promote the export of horticultural produce, identifying 12 out of a total of 53clustersfor implementation in a pilot phase.

The identified clusters for implementation of CDP in the first phase include Shopian (J&K) and Kinnaur (Himachal Pradesh) for apple; Lucknow (UP), Kutch (Gujarat) and Mahbubnagar () for mango; Anantpur (AP) and Theni (TN) for banana; Nasik (Maharashtra) for grapes; Siphahijala (Tripura) for pineapple; Solapur (Maharashtra) and Chitradurga (Karnataka) for pomegranate and West Jaintia Hills (Meghalaya) for turmeric.

Based on the learnings from the pilot project, the programme will be scaled up to cover all the 53 clusters in the next 5-7 years.

The CDP will be implemented by theNational Horticulture Board(NHB) through Cluster Development Agencies (CDAs) which are appointed on the recommendations of the respective state/UT government.

Deputy Chief Minister of MaharashtraDevendra Fadnavisrevealed a statue ofChhatrapati Shivaji MaharajinMauritius. He highlighted Maharashtras potential as a leading industrial and destination in India at the Indo-Mauritius Business Forum and signed an MoU to promote trade betweenMauritiusandMaharashtra.

Fadnavis attended a cultural event with Mauritius Prime MinisterPravind Jugnauthand will meet with members of the Maharashtrian community.

During his visit to Mauritius, Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis unveiled a statue of the Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and emphasized that our existence today is indebted to Shivaji Maharaj.

Maharashtra addedWest Bengal and Uttar Pradeshto places with sensitive origin category. Travellers coming to Maharashtra from these states will require a negative RT-PCR report and will be screened at entry points, like RAILWAY stations or bus-stands. People who don’t have a negative test report will be tested on the spot. Those with negative reports will be stamped to be in Home quarantine for 15 days. So far, the state has declaredRajasthan, Goa, Delhi and NCR, Kerala, Gujarat andUttarakhandas places of sensitive origin. The restrictions will continue till the order is not retracted or Covid-19 is not notified as a disaster.

More than 44,000schoolbuses acrossMaharashtrafinally got the tax relief for two years. Thegovernmentissued a notification on Tuesday mentioning that all school buses whether owned by school orprivate contractors will get 100% relief in road tax for the period between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2022.

The city bus operators said that some of the buses may restart operations from Monday. The city has around 8,000 school buses. School Bus Owners Association president Anil Garg said that a section of bus operators had paid tax which would be adjusted with the future payment of taxes in 2022-23.