Surat: After bagging the ‘second cleanest city in the country’ tag in the fifth edition of Swachh Survekshan last year, the Diamond City has added another feather to its cap.
Surat city scored the second rank in the Municipal Performance Index (MPI) 2020 in the million-plus category in the country. Indore has emerged as the top ranked municipality, followed by Surat and Bhopal.
Hardeep Singh Puri, minister of state (independent charge), housing and urban affairs on Thursday released the final rankings of Ease of Living Index (EoLI) 2020 along with MPI 2020 in an online event.
“Getting the second rank in MPI is very important. We have improved on many governing aspects of SMC. Performances in water supply, drainage, road, street lights, health, education and e-governance were considered and SMC has done commendable work in these areas,” Banchhanidhi Pani, Municipal Commissioner, Surat, told TOI.
Surat: After nearly 35 days, four cases of Covid-19 were recorded in Dang district of South Gujarat on Thursday. The tribal-dominated district had not reported a single coronavirus case since January 28.
According to health officials, the last Covid-19 patient in Dang was discharged on January 28 and since then not a single case was reported. But on Thursday, the district reported four cases.
“Those persons who tested positive for coronavirus included a 58-year-old man, a 36-year-old man, a 31-year-old and a 25-year-old from Ahwa taluka. We have appealed to people to follow Covid-19 guidelines strictly to avoid the spread of the virus,” said a district health official.
Jignesh Modi
Surat: The anti-corruption bureau (ACB) sleuths arrested an assistant engineer of Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 15,000 for approving drainage connections to an apartment building on Thursday.
The accused Jignesh Modi was nabbed red-handed from his Rander zone office.
The ACB team had laid a trap following a complaint from a plumbing contractor who had got work to provide drainage lines to 120 flats in an apartment building. The contractor had approached Modi as the work required approval of the civic body.
On receiving the application from the complainant, Modi demanded Rs 150 per flat which came to around Rs 18,000. After negotiations, Modi agreed for Rs 15,000.
Surat: Continuing their process of registering complaints related to cyber-crime fraud and online harassment, city police registered 27 more cases on Wednesday. Interestingly, except one complaint of online harassment, the remaining complaints are all related to financial frauds.
WHile the complaints had been received a few months ago, cops have registered the FIRs late, which they claim were being done only after preliminary investigation. However, legal experts do not buy the police explanation and claim that investigation is possible even after registering the complaint.
Earlier, police registered 32 such complaints on Tuesday, applications of which were received in the past few months. Majority of these complaints relate to financial frauds in which recovery of money was not possible.
Surat: A school principal, two students and three siblings of an infected student, were among the 91 people who tested positive for Covid-19 in Surat on Thursday.
The Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) has once again asked those people coming from outside to get themselves tested for coronavirus to curtail the spread of infection.
“In the last 10 days, five people who had travelled to different parts of Gujarat or outside the state, have tested positive for Covid-19 from the central zone,” said an SMC official.
These people had travelled to the union territory of Daman, Nadiad, Kathor village and Karjan near Vadodara. “People coming from outside the city have been found to infected with the Covid-19 virus. Therefore, we are urging people who have travelled outside the city to get themselves tested once they return,” the SMC official added.