Chandigarh to be free of disposable plastic
In an attempt to make the city completely plastic-free, Chandigarh Adminis-tration’s department of environment has proposed to ban plastic products including disposable plates, small spoons, water bottles and single-use straws. The department has also stated that plastic water bottles with a capacity of less than one litre will be banned as large plastic bottles are often reused for storing water in homes. Use of plastic covered water cups, 250ml plastic bottles and disposable plastic bags, all of which cannot be reused, has also been prohibited.
Coolers, Glucon-D for zoo animals
Chhat Bir Zoo near Chandigarh is all set to keep the animals cool in the blazing heat this summer. The zoo has installed mini-water pools as well as desert coolers near the cages of lions, tigers and jaguars. Exhaust fans have been placed in cages, while ice slabs have been given to bears. Additionally, all the empty ponds have been were replenished and the windows of the enclosures have been covered with dense nets to keep mosquitoes away. Dietary changes have also been brought about. While glucose powder has been mixed in drinking water of all carnivores and omnivores, fruits with high water content like cucumber and watermelon will be given to the herbivores. The zoo’s birds will now be fed spinach instead of cabbage. Mercury has been soaring higher and higher across North India leading to an intense heatwave with rain nowhere in sight.
City lake now a protected wetland
The Chandigarh Administration is all set to notify Sukhana Lake as a protected wetland under the Wetland Conservation and Management Rules, 2017, after the recommendations of the technical committee were accepted by Punjab Governor VP Singh Bandore. Bandore, the administrator of Chandigarh, took this decision in a high level meeting he headed. Once notified as wetland, no one will able to encroach or dump solid waste, untreated waste and effluents in the lake. The lake was declared protected by the administration in 1988.
Sanitation workers to get GPS wristwatches
To keep a tab on attendance, the Panchkula Municipal Corporation will soon introduce GPS-enabled wristwatches for its sanitation workers. The corporation willspend `12 lakh on the project with each watch costing around `800. The corporation has purchased 800 wristwatches in the first phase and plans to record the attendance of over 2,000 workers. Each watch will be connected through a code to the control room. The system integrator will provide an end-to-end solution, including supply of 1,500 GPS-enabled wristwatches, servers, application software, web interfaceand related MIS reports.