New biomedical science museum
The museum of India’s first biomedical research institute — the Haffkine Institute — will soon be also known for medical science tourism, Maharashtra tourism minister Jaykumar Rawal has announced. Haffkine Institute is best known for creating a vaccine when the plague was reported in the country.
Later, the institute went on to develop antidotes for animal bites and diseases.
Apart from its rich history, the institute building, museum, old Raj Bhavan, and Darbar — all places of attraction — will find a place on the tourist map, the minister said, adding that the institute has signed an agreement with the Tata Trust under the government’s plan to get the status of a national museum.
No bill, no payment at rail stalls
The railways have now made it compulsory for all the stalls at stations to provide bills of their business dealings. People need not make any payment if the stalls don’t get bills for their payments, officials have said.
After complaints that the goods on railway stalls were being sold at higher prices, the railways had made it compulsory for all such stalls to use POS machines for accepting the payments.
However, stalls at Mumbai’s suburban railway stations had refused to use POS machines, owing to which railway officials decided to make it compulsory for them to give bills.
This is the second such action against the stalls after the licence of a stall was cancelled a few months ago due to unhygienic practices.
New app to update commuters on train timings
Commuters of the Central Railway (CR) suburban line will soon get to know the real-time location of their local trains, courtesy an app that is likely to launched by August 15.
The app is a part of the CR’s ambitious plan to have a GPS system on all its rakes for updating train commuters about travel details. Along with the new app, the CR is planning to make available ‘content on demand’ service on all its trains for allowing passengers to access music, serials and movies on hotspot Wi-Fi inside trains.
The service will be available for free on mobiles after September 30 in an advanced version of the app.
Tax on garbage?
If the proposals being prepared by the civic administration to get cleared, Mumbai may soon see a tax on garbage. As the city slipped on the Swachh Survey rating, the municipal corporation has brought a proposal to tax all its services like collecting, transporting and disposing waste from societies or establishments.
With no space left at dumping grounds, the civic administration had already made it compulsory for establishments to dispose their own waste if it’s more than 100 kg per day. It is a win-win situation for the administration as any waste disposal tax can be a major source of income.