 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| . |  |
. |
Mumbai (AFP) Nov 29, 2010 Building work has been halted on India's newest hill station, developers said on Monday, after the government claimed that some construction had taken place illegally and parts of it may have to be razed. "We have stopped all construction work as per the notice," a spokesman for Lavasa Corporation Limited, a unit of the giant Hindustan Construction Company, told AFP. The stoppage comes after India's environment ministry said last Thursday that the company had not obtained the necessary legal permission for some developments on the site 200 kilometres (125 miles) southeast of Mumbai. Indian federal police on Friday also named Lavasa as one of 21 companies it was investigating in relation to a bribes-for-loan scam that has seen the arrest of eight executives from state-run banks and a top insurer. Lavasa has denied involvement. The ministry warned that "the unauthorised structures erected without any environmental clearance... be removed forthwith in entirety" if the company did not respond satisfactorily within 15 days. The firm's lawyers issued a strongly-worded response on Monday, claiming the show cause notice -- a document requiring a party to explain why a certain course of action should not be taken -- was "drastic" and "issued in haste". The 27-page response also said the ministry had acted in bad faith, under pressure from political activists opposed to the project and with an ulterior motive to stall the company's planned flotation on the stock market. The initial public offering -- due in the coming months -- is expected to be in the region of 20 billion rupees (454 million dollars), the company has said. Lavasa said in its response that either permission had been granted or was not needed for the disputed constructions and said 30 billion rupees of investment and thousands of new jobs were at risk if the project is mothballed. Lavasa has been billed as India's first hill station since independence in 1947 and hailed by its backers as a blueprint for building and managing future cities, as the country's population explodes and urbanisation increases.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Our Polluted World and Cleaning It Up
Naples' piles of garbage gone by Christmas: mayor's officeRome (AFP) Nov 28, 2010 Italy's southern city of Naples will be rid of its piles of garbage by Christmas with the arrival of dump trucks from other regions helping in an intensified clean-up, the mayor's office vowed Sunday. Uncollected waste has accumulated in the city for weeks, with residents reporting a rise in the numbers of rats, pigeons and seagulls and experts warning of health risks from the rotting rubbis ... read more |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook
