City to rebuild Sukhna Lake watchtower
Under the Chandigarh administration plan to give a facelift to the Sukhna Lake island, it has decided to re-build the iconic four-storey watchtower here. Build in the early 1980s at the time of the Junior Asian Rowing Championship, the watchtower was gutted in a major fire in 2009. The tower was not only used to keep watch across the entire lake, but also helped the Chandigarh Rowing Association to become eligible for hosting national and international championships. The administration has floated tenders to engage consultants for the project – including for musical fountains, and laser and light shows.
Parks in Panchkula to get innovative facilities
The Panchkula municipal corporation has decided on beautification of public parks with over one acre area. A total of 56 parks have been identified to be redeveloped under the initiative. The revamp process will begin with parks in Sector 20. The civic body has 276 parks under its limit. These parks will be redeveloped on the lines of modern parks in developed countries and will have innovative and human-friendly facilities. Besides, must-have additions to be developed are new water bodies, hard- surface walking tracks, synthetic jogging tracks, badminton courts, kids area, open-air gyms. etc. Lamp-posts and decoration lights would be installed along all pedestrian paths. Panchkula along with Mohali – satellite cities of Chandigarh – together with the capital city are collectively known as Chandigarh Tricity.
Private hospitals to reserve 50% beds for Covid
In view of spread of the Covid infection at an alarming rate, the Chandigarh administration has asked private hospitals to reserve 50 per cent of beds for Covid patients, set ceiling on medical bills, and to ensure strict adherence to the guidelines from Centre and ICMR. It said that presently there is no need to fix daily quota on oxygen cylinders for private hospitals and regulating refilling charges by private refilling vendors and to use medical oxygen judiciously. The private hospitals have also been directed to erect display boards outside their premises to this effect.
Centre slashes UT budget allocation
The Union Finance Ministry has cut the annual budget of Chandigarh administration of the current year from Rs 5,186 crore to Rs 4,942 crore. A few months back the administration has demanded Rs 202 crore more from the Central government in it’s revised estimates. The administration will now ask all departments to spend their allocations judiciously, and defer projects and works based on priority. The administration had demanded Rs 200 crore for the municipal corporation, which too has been turned down. A day ago, the administration okayed Rs 125 crore to the municipal corporation as the final grant aid for the ongoing fiscal.
Harpreet Bajwa
Our correspondent in Chandigarh hsbajwa73@gmail.com