At a time when cost cutting and retrenchment is giving the working class sleepless nights, employees of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) have done the unthinkable — ask for a huge hike.

Despite an average 20% hike in their salaries, they want more. Taking advantage of the ensuing elections, employee unions are pressurising the Sena-led municipal corporation to approve hikes over and above those ratified by the Centre in the recently approved Sixth Pay Commission.

Here’s good news for the people living in the industrial belt of Eloor.

State Industries Minister Elamaram Karim had said that the administration will soon launch a pilot project of medical insurance to cover 3500 families in the selected nine wards of Eloor Grama Panchayat from April 1.

Under this scheme five members of each family will be given Rs 30,000 with an annual premium of Rs. 506 per person.

The minster also made it very clear that the offered reimbursements of the National Health Insurance Programme of the Rashriya Swasthya Bima Yojana amounting to Rs 30,000 can also be availed by members of each family.

The Maharashtra Cabinet on Friday decided to buy 500MW of additional electricity per day from private firms over the next three months to reduce load-shedding in the state. This will cost the state Rs288 crore per month.

The state will purchase the power at Rs8 per unit, and sell it for Rs3.50 per unit, thus recovering Rs88 crore from customers. It will bear the Rs4.50 deficit on each unit.

The state is currently witnessing an electricity shortfall of 4,500MW per day; rural areas of Maharashtra are experiencing load-shedding ranging between 8 and 16 hours. The 500MW of additional power will reduce load-shedding by an hour, sources in the Cabinet said.

Government, which was caught napping in the case of hepatitis-B epidemic in Modasa and its adjoining villages, has decided to enact a law to take strong measures to protect public health.

Many analysts are of the view that the merger of Reliance Industries (RIL) and Reliance Petroleum (RPL) will have an impact on the state government’s revenue. Currently, RIL is paying to the state government huge amounts as taxes under VAT and other regimes. But after the merger, it is quite possible that the RIL unit at Jamnagar will be converted into an export-oriented unit.

Almost 10 years after laying the foundation stone for the Bisalpur-Jaipur Water Supply Project (BWSP) in December 1999, chief minister Ashok Gehlot will inaugurate the supply of Bisalpur water in Jaipur on Sunday in Sector 9 of Malviya Nagar.

The project will supply water from the existing Bisalpur dam and reservoir (located on the Banas river, about 106 kilometres south west of Jaipur city) up to Balawala, from where potable water will be supplied through supply systems in Jaipur and nearby rural areas. The project aims at supplying potable water to nearly 53 lakh people in major settlement areas of the city till 2021.