Friday, 15 July 2011

Bihar News, Latest News from Bihar, News of Bihar, Biharprabha News

Bihar News, Latest News from Bihar, News of Bihar, Biharprabha News

How to get Passport your easily

Posted: 15 Jul 2011 06:26 AM PDT

Trilok Singh is a harried man. All he wants is a passport for his son but the way matters are proceeding, it looks like a full-fledged crisis. He first went to the  regional passport office (RPO). Now he has come to the new passport seva kendra (PSK), which he terms as passport pareshani kendra.

Trilok Singh's confusion is something all of us can easily imagine. His son has submitted the application at the PSK, hoping for better services. Now PSK says the passport has been sent to the RPO where it will be processed further. But RPO has no clue about it. Meanwhile, the computer in the district police headquarters at Mohali is not working, so police verification is pending. There is no help at hand to clear the confusion. Trilok Singh says there is no grievance or information officer at the PSK, and the new website (www.passportindia.gov.in) and the helpline (1800-258-1800) are of no help. The passport is needed urgently, but his son cannot apply under the tatkal scheme now as he has already applied through the normal route once.
Satinder Singh, who works in a factory and has come from Samana, can understand Trilok Singh's travails. He first reached the RPO for his 9 am appointment. After spending more than an hour in the line he was told he had to go to the PSK. Now the PSK has asked him to come again as his documents are not in order.
But Pramod and Monica Sharma of Kharar are among the few who are satisfied with the Chandigarh PSK. They had heard stories of the hassles one has to go through to get a passport, but the couple got their passports without much trouble.
Gurjant Singh too is happy. He did pay an agent Rs 400 for help in filing the application online and getting an appointment. But, on the whole, he is satisfied as he feels things are better at the PSK than at the RPO. Narender Kaur is also relieved that she has been able to complete the procedure within a day and her kids will not have to miss school for another day again.
Another PSK, at Ambala, has also elicited mixed responses. It has saved time for Harinder Singh of Ambala Cantt, who doesn't need to go to Chandigarh. Raj Kumar Chauhan of Karnal, who arrived at the PSK with his wife and children, breathes a sigh of relief when he says they have finished the whole process without wasting hours in queues – as he had to in Chandigarh RPO.

Making passport delivery faster
Getting a passport was never easy, and in recent years there was a spurt in demand, burdening the system further. The number of passport applicants grew from 33,216 in 1958 to 44,41,768 passports in 2006 – a 133-fold rise. The number of applicants in 2010 is estimated to be 84,39,584 (see box below).
To deliver services with speed and efficiency against such a rising demand, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) engaged the Hyderabad-based national institute for smart government (NISG) to re-engineer the whole passport issuance system. The aim was to use information technology to achieve process efficiency, citizen focus, employee productivity and transparency. NISG on its part engaged the services of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) as consultants and selected Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as system integrator (SI) to implement the project in public-private partnership (PPP). As part of the vision for the project, MEA has set benchmarks to issue the passports within three days of application and, in cases which require police verification, within three days of the completion of the verification process. Tatkal passports are expected to be issued the same day.
The project envisages setting up 77 PSKs in collaboration with the private partner for delivering all front-end citizen services. The existing RPOs will function as passport back offices (PBOs) for back-end processing and passport printing. A passport portal for offering passport services online has been established and direct links with every district superintendent of police office have been established for online transfer of personal particular forms (PPFs). As part of the passport seva project (PSP), a central passport printing facility (CPPF) data centre, a data recovery centre and call centres have also been established.
But the project which was to plug delays in passport issuance was itself marred by delays. After bagging the project in October 2008, TCS missed several deadlines (March 2009, June 2009, October 2009 and November 13, 2009) for the launch of the pilot project at Bangalore, Hubli, Mangalore, Ambala, Chandigarh and Ludhiana. Even the parliamentary standing committee on external affairs expressed its concerns on the delay.
The reason: independent third-party testing agency, STQC, identified more than 600 bugs in the software which took a lot of time to be fixed. TCS was reportedly fined Rs 48 lakh as its contract with MEA mentions a Rs 2 lakh penalty for a week's delay.
The pilot PSKs were finally inaugurated by external
affairs minister S M Krishna on May 28 in Karnataka
followed by one each in Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh on August 17.

Will it be user-friendly?
With a private firm implementing the Rs 1,000 crore project, a citizen would have expected the passport centres to finally turn user-friendly, but little changed on the ground immediately.
In Bangalore, where the passport applications were accepted through the Bangalore One centres, the standards actually went down. Reports said the centres could take only about 175-200 applications in a day. There was confusion in queue management for both online applicants and walk-in applicants.
Currently only online applicants with application reference number (ARN) are allowed to be part of the issuance process and entry into a PSK. A notice to this effect is available at the passport seva project website (www.pasportindia.gov.in). It also says that in Bangalore even the tatkal applicants have to take an online appointment and in Chandigarh the tatkal applicants have to go to the RPO.
When we accessed the website on December 22 to find the earliest appointment for the Bangalore PSK, the system showed up the date of January 18 (see webshot). So, in case someone wants to get the tatkal passport in Bangalore, he will have to wait for at least 25 days. Contrast this to the MEA's claim of issuing a tatkal passport in a day or a fresh passport in three days.
Then there are groundlevel problems to deal with. The server can be slow or may crash down at times. The applicant has to be present at the PSK since the biometrics have to be captured and this may prove difficult for the differently-abled and senior citizens.
A verification officer at the PSK in Ambala says the new system has increased the employees' workload, forcing them to work extra hours. They also have to now travel from Chandigarh to places like Ambala and Ludhiana. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the system was often running slow though the IT officials tried to help as much as they could.
Thus, while there are a plethora of problems with the project, the experience of the many applicants like Pramod and Monica Sharma or Gurjant Singh indicates that the system is proceeding in the right direction. The teething troubles of the new system, expected for a project of this magnitude, are also getting resolved with time.
About the Author
SAMIR SACHDEVA
Samir has over ten years of experience with organizations like TCS, GOI, HCL, NISG , EY. He is working as assistant editor with Governance Now.Contact him at samir@governancenow.com

Source:http://www.governancenow.com/gov-next/egov/passport-getting-it-without-sweating-it

Goenka group planning to invest in Bihar

Posted: 15 Jul 2011 04:29 AM PDT

Sanjiv Goenka group, a major business conglomerate today rolled out a growth plan for the next five years.This includes investment in Bihar and Odisha.

"We are planning Rs 35,000-crore investments to take our group turnover from Rs 9,000 crore to Rs 25,000 crore in the next five years," Mr Goenka told newspersons at a press conference. The group is implementing two thermal power stations in Maharashtra and West Bengal of a combined capacity of 1,200 MW. Also on the cards are super-critical projects in Orissa and Bihar.

"The road map for the just-born RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group is very aggressive growth in power with plans to increase generating capacities six times," he told his 16,000 employees across the country through a Webcast.

While Rs 30,000 crore or 85 per cent of the total will be directed towards power projects, the group has earmarked Rs 2,500 crore for expanding the carbon black business in and outside India. While the bulk of it will be spent in adding capacities in the country, the company is setting up a 110,000 tonne plant in Vietnam, slated to be operational in 2013.

"We are also exploring opportunities to expand in other geographies, may be outside Asia," he told Business Line later.

Having recently picked up stake in a South African coal asset of the Sydney-based miner Resource Generation Ltd, RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group is scouting for more coal assets. "We are aggressively looking at opportunities in Indonesia, South Africa and many other locations," Mr Goenka said.

RETAIL INITIATIVES

The initial setback in the retail initiatives notwithstanding, Mr Goenka is bullish on the future of Spencer’s Retail Ltd. It may have taken some time to stabilise but Spencer’s is now clearly on a recovery path, he added.

Saregama India is also reportedly doing better and this will soon start reflecting in its results

UTI targets micro investors in Bihar

Posted: 15 Jul 2011 12:24 AM PDT

KOLKATA: UTI Mutual Fund (UTI-MF) will target one crore investors under its micro pension initiative in the next three years, a top company official said Wednesday.

“The micro pension initiative is targeted chiefly towards the unorganised sector which lacks basic social security,” UTI-MF group president Jaideep Bhattacharya told reporters after an agreement with Srei Sahaj e-Village Ltd, which will provide distribution network for the scheme.

“We are targeting an investor base of one crore in the next three years,” he added.

The scheme will be launched in Assam, Bihar, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Later on, it will be extended across the country.

Bhattacharya said the company will target one lakh investors in the first year in the six states.

“It’s a new project, targeting a new space. So, we have empowered ourselves with adequate knowledge before we aim for higher targets. After the initial year, we will target about one crore investors in the next three years.”

On the need for social security schemes, he said: “According to the latest census, 7.7 crore people in India are 60 or more years old. With the increase in the life expectancy rate, people are going to live at least 20 years more after retirement.”

“Therefore, they need to invest in pension schemes to secure their old age,” he added.

The pension initiative is an open-end tax saving-cum-pension fund, aimed primarily to provide periodical income. The scheme invests minimum 60 percent and maximum 100 percent in debt and balance in equity.

Review of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

Posted: 14 Jul 2011 08:45 PM PDT

Films dealing with life-altering epiphanies are always shot in stunning locations. And Hindi films dealing with the same, need a stunning cast as well. A possible rationale: beautiful places relieve stress and bring things into perspective. And beautiful people experiencing divine realizations can hold your perspective on the screen, often resulting in a ‘ka-ching’ sound at the box office. ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ (ZNMD) is one such film.

In true ‘Hangover’ meets Vikas-Krishna-Barcelona spirit, the film deals with a bachelor adventure marinated with stories of finding, losing and forgetting love. Kabir (Abhay Deol), an affluent construction tycoon is about to take the marital plunge. But not before he completes a much-postponed trip with school buddies, investment banker (and constantly grumpy) Arjun (Hrithik Roshan) and freestyle flirt Imraan (Farhan Akhtar).

So, the boys with biceps shoot off to Spain, a land where sunny means a summery glow and not sweaty and stinky, much like an AC studio in Mahalaxmi. Now, the deal is that each would pick a secret adventure sport and the others would have to join him at it.

The problem arises when Kabir’s fiancé, poisonously possessive Natasha (Kalki Koechlin) lands up in Spain suspecting a wild orgy (don’t get your hopes up, there aren’t any). Soon, Kabir takes over as grumpy and Arjun finds hope underwater, as spunky skiing instructor Laila (Katrina Kaif) shows him corals and also offers morals like ‘seize the day’ and ‘live in the moment for you could die tomorrow’. These prophetic pearls of wisdom (from the rough draft of Guzaarish 2?) pierce through Kabir and he realizes how he cherishes things besides money. On Arjun’s exaggerated revelations, Imraan remarks, “Ek hi dubki mein zindagi ke saarein raaz khul gaye? Tujhe toh underwater hi rehna chahiye.” But then Imraan only spends his screen presence saying and doing things that would be considered unacceptable or just down-right silly in adult society.

The film isn’t as simplistic as it seems and each character has a back story and internal conflicts that surface intermittently between thrill-seeking stunts, sugary love, drunk talking and some seriously childish pranks. What is aesthetic in this film apart from the charming Spanish countryside is that scenes which would usually be served with heightened melodrama are quite well contained and subtle, yet convey the emotion.

The music is hummable but the choreography usually finds Abay Deol playing the part of ‘Senorita’. Farhan’s comic timing is immaculate but his shayari is cocaine-infused and like a soft murmuring background score it could lull you to sleep. Kalki is deliciously annoying as her character required her to be and Katrina’s performance doesn’t make or break this film. The film’s overall humour quotient is not very high and is mostly situational and there are usually more people laughing on the screen than in the audience.

In a tasteful manner, ZNMD has managed to do for Spain, what ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ did for Goa, beautifully selling the beaches, babes, tomatoes, tortillas and thrilling adventure sports. Spaniards should only be cautious that this tourism AV doesn’t do to their country what the malls did to the mills of Lower Parel. Do I hear McTacos?

You can reach me at guha.kunal@rocketmail.com or connect with me on Facebook

Bihar on the roads to become an IT hub soon

Posted: 14 Jul 2011 08:23 PM PDT

Patna Bihar is all set to become the most sought-after destination of information technology and IteS (IT enabled Services) companies. NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) delegates are in talks with the state government to setup IT infrastructure in the state.

Dr Ganesh Natarajan, the member of the chairmen's council of Nasscom, yesterday met deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi and the information technology secretary, Arun Kumar Singh.

"The software industry in India has an export market of US$60 billion at present. But the cost of human skill development and infrastructure development for software industry in metropolitan cities has increased considerably in the past few years. Moreover, majority of the software industry in the country is confined to five states — Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and the National Capital Region. So, we are looking for second- and third-tier cities for the development of a concept we have termed as 'IT-eco system'. It is basically a skill and infrastructure development plan for software development and financing," Natarajan said.

Natarajan said the response from Modi and other officers were excellent.

"We got a good response from the deputy chief minister. He seemed to be aware of the current trends and requirements of the IT industry. Moreover, we were just asked about our action plans and how do we intend to make the requisite development in the state," Natarajan said, adding that the availability of skilled manpower could augment the arrival of IT, ITeS and engineering companies to the state.

Suvopriya Mukherjee, general manager, alliances and special projects, Global Talent Track (GTT) Private Limited, who accompanied Natarajan, said: "The first step for the development of software industry at any place is the development of a pool of skilled and trained manpower."

Mukherjee said: "With the co-operation of the state government, GTT would create an educational framework. Aspiring students would be trained on vocational skills that would help them get ready for the industry. Similar initiatives in Jammu and Kashmir and Assam had been highly successful. After assessing around 2,000 students at University of Kashmir, we had selected 399. They will be absorbed by the leading companies by the time they complete training."

Canadian company to setup the design of World Class Museum in Patna

Posted: 14 Jul 2011 08:11 PM PDT

A Canadian company, Lord Cultural Resources, is expected to construct the proposed World Class Museum in the city.Lord Culture Resources president Barry Lord and his team held discussion with senior officials of the state government over the proposed project. The CM directed chief secretary Anup Mukherjee to constitute a standing committee, comprising some selected officials, and set in motion talks with the consultant group.

Sources said the firm will provide consultancy services from designing of the proposed museum and display of artifacts and other materials aimed at showcasing Bihar’s contribution to civilization, democracy and education since ancient times.

The firm will be paid a consultancy fee of Rs 4.2 crores and will finalize the concept of the museum within a year. The construction of the proposed museum, spread over 17 acres, will take about four years.

Nitish stressed that in the proposed museum, the entire history, culture, civilization, religious faiths and other related subjects be collected. The museum would also serve to present a broader picture of Bihar and its history to the visiting tourists.

Through the power point presentation on the past glory of Pataliputra to the present Patna, and the historical glimpses of the political, social, cultural and religious aspects of the periods of Lord Buddha, Lord Mahavir, Asoka the Great and Chandragupta were highlighted.

The meeting also discussed in detail the exhibition of artifacts, design of the museum, architect, exhibition gallery and children’s park. “A discussion on Bihar will remain incomplete without reference to Aryabhatta, Chanakya and Nalanda Mahavihara,” said Nitish and suggested galleries be dedicated to them.

The meeting was attended among others by art and culture minister Sukhda Pandey and department secretary C Lalsota, principal secretaries of finance, urban development and PHED Rameshwar Singh, Shashi Shekhar Sharma and Rabindra Pawar respectively, Patna commissioner K P Ramaiah and CM’s secretaries S Siddhartha, Chanchal Kumar and Atish Chandra.

Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/Canadian-firm-selected-as-consultant-for-proposed-museum/articleshow/9216560.cms

Indian Potash Limited to setup Sugar Plant in Bihar

Posted: 14 Jul 2011 08:04 PM PDT

New Delhi-Indian Potash Limited said today that it has planned to make an investment of about Rs. 300 crore in setting up a Sugar plant and distillery in Muzaffarpur District of Bihar
Presently IPL has five sugar plants in Uttar Pradesh (UP) with a total crushing capacity of 12,000 tonnes of cane per day.

“We will establish a sugar plant, along with a distillery to produce Indian-Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL), with an investment of Rs 280 crore,” said IPL Managing Director P S Gahlaut.

The company will soon start construction work on the sugar and distillery plant in Bihar, he added.

“While the sugar plant will have a capacity of 3,500 tonnes of cane crushed per day, the distillery will produce 45,000 litres per day,” Gahlaut said.

During the last fiscal, IPL established four sugar plants in UP, taking its total plants in the state to five. The company’s sugar plants are situated at Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Lucknow and two at Gorakhpur.

“The total investment made by the company on the sugar plants in UP is around Rs 280-300 crore,” he noted.

At present, the total sugar producing capacity of the company is around 12,000 tonnes of cane per day (TCD), which would reach 18,000-20,000 TCD after the Bihar plants becomes operational and with further capacity addition in the next three years, Gahlaut added.

According to Gahlaut, the company is focusing on eastern UP and Bihar, which have so far been lagging in terms of sugar production.

“Our focus is on East UP and Bihar, as these areas have good scope for development and we expect that our investments here will pay rich dividend in the future,” he noted.

IPL, which is a major importer of fertilisers, imported around 9.4 million tonnes of fertilisers in the last fiscal.
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