Bengaluru, Jan 1: Former Karnataka Chief Minister and Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah on Wednesday slammed the Centre on the issue of fare hike announcement by Indian Railways.
"Increase in Train fares is a New Year gift by Narendra Modi government to common people," Siddaramaiah tweeted.
"This will further dent the developmental prospects as Railways form a backbone of Transportation. Instead, the govt should have gifted us the values of our Constitution by upholding it," he added.
Bengaluru, Feb 4: The CBI has booked Karnataka cadre senior IPS officers Hemant Nimbalkar and Ajay Hilori along with eight others in connection with Rs 4,000-crore I-Monetary Advisory (IMA) scam in which gullible investors were allegedly cheated in the name of Islamic banking, officials said on Tuesday.
The move came after the CBI received an approval from the Karnataka government to proceed with investigation into alleged role of 1998-batch IPS officer Nimbalkar and 2008-batch IPS officer Hilori, they said.
Along with the two officers, the agency has also named the company IMA, its founder Mansoor Khan and others in the case.
The CBI had approached the state government seeking permission to proceed against the two officers who are in senior positions in the Karnataka Police and allegedly helped IMA founder Masoor Khan, they said.
Bengaluru, Feb 7: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) ordered the destruction of a tilted building in the city after evacuating about 150 people from 35 families in the vicinity, an official said on Thursday.
"The top portion of the building has been destroyed 70 per cent today (Thursday). Later, the destruction contractor will allow machines to be used," Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Yelahanka joint commissioner Ashok said.
Located on Vinayaknagar Street in Hebbal's Kempapura, the five-storey building being used as a hostel for boys got tilted on Wednesday morning, spreading panic in the neighbourhood.
Though the tilted building owned by one Rahul, a jeweller, was a sound structure, Ashok said a neighbour, Babu, hired a JCB excavator to dig deep beside the affected structure to build his own structure.
"Babu not only dug very deep but also damaged the foundation pillar of the tilted building, weakening the structure and leading to its slant," said Ashok.
Babu has been booked and arrested even as the police are on the look-out for the JCB owner and operator.
The titled building erected five floors unauthorisedly and falls into the B Khata category. It was constructed without the civic body's plan, said Ashok.
A Khata and B Khata denote the two types of khatas that exist under BBMP. Khata is a document which shows a property owner having an account with the municipality to pay taxes. An A Khata denotes that the building owner has paid relevant property taxes and that the building conforms to building bylaws and government rules. A B Khata denotes that the building is in violation of government regulations regarding properties in Bengaluru, even when the civic charges for the property have been cleared by the owner.
"As per procedure, we issue notice, but such constructions are rampant in the city. Under the BBMP jurisdiction, there are 15 lakh B Khata structures," said Ashok.
For all B Khata sites, the civic body does not give any plan and there is no proper control on them, he said.
Ashok said the case to regularise the B Khata buildings to A Khata buildings is currently pending in the Supreme Court.
Luckily, no injury or loss of life has been reported from the tilted building.
The civic body arranged alternative accommodation for the affected families, but most of them chose to stay with their relatives, said Ashok.
Bengaluru, Apr 1: The price of petrol and diesel will go up by Rs 1.60 and Rs 1.59 per litre, respectively, from Wednesday. This is in line with Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa’s decision to hike the rate of tax on petrol from 32% to 35% and diesel from 21% to 24%.
He had announced this in his March 5 Budget for 2020-21 fiscal. At present, a litre of petrol costs Rs 71.97 and diesel Rs 64.41 in Bengaluru.
The government decided to roll out the hike from Tuesday midnight going into Wednesday, April 1, after briefly considering a postponement in view of the COVID-19 crisis.
Finance Secretary (Budget & Resources) Ekroop Caur confirmed to DH that the hike will be rolled out.
The 3% hike on fuel tax was a key resource mobilisation measure that Yediyurappa announced in his Budget. The hike is expected to fetch the government Rs 1,500 crore.
Yediyurappa had also announced a 6% additional excise duty on Indian Made Liquor (IML), which could help the government mop up Rs 1,200 crore. However, the sale of liquor has been prohibited during the lockdown period. Plus, hiking fuel prices during the lockdown will not hit citizens very hard.
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