New Delhi, April 30
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has booked a profit of more than 50 per cent with the awarding of new tender of toll tax for a period of three years starting from 2011 till 2014.

The MCD, while opening the applications for the tenders today, finalised the highest bidder which came out to be a private firm with a bidding amount of Rs 936 crore for three years, yielding a revenue of Rs 312 crore in one year to the corporation.

Earlier, the civic agency had leased out the toll tax at a rate of Rs 540 crore for three years during 2008-11, which was Rs 180 crore per year. "This has been a remarkable achievement for the MCD as we have crossed a profit range of 50 per cent. This is the result of our efforts towards introducing e-governance in the corporation," said Subhash Arya, Leader of the House in the MCD.

For the period of three years 2005-08, the toll tax generated total revenue of Rs 240 crore, with Rs 80 crore per year.

The MCD had increased the toll tax rates last generation for the cash-strapped civic body.

Before this, the MCD had last raised its toll tax in 2007. The MCD officials said it was hiked because, in the past two years, the value of the rupee had decreased. This was done taking the current rate of inflation into consideration, said the officer.

The new rates will be levied from mid of May. As per the proposal, taxi, tempo, Tata-407 and other such type of commercial vehicles, which are paying Rs 35 as toll tax per entry at present, will have to shell out Rs 45.

However, the opposition Congress had opposed the proposal, though the ruling BJP members favoured it saying that it was a nominal hike within the limits prescribed by the Delhi government. There are 18 entry points to Delhi where tax is collected by the MCD.

"The rates will be applicable from all toll points within the jurisdiction of Delhi," said Arya. Bus, truck, Nissan, Tata-709 or canters and other such vehicles, which are paying Rs 70 at present, will have to pay Rs 85."

New Delhi, April 30
The Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, said today that the rapid urbanisation of the rural areas in Delhi was causing shortage of agricultural land.

She was speaking at an inaugural ceremony of a new agricultural science centre building in Ujjawa near Najafgarh. She laid the stress on the need for multi-crop system in the Capital.

"We need to increase the agricultural production of the Capital as it is dependent on nearby states for fulfilling its own requirements," said Dikshit.

The Chief Minister said the new centre would help farmers get agricultural related information and they also get the knowledge of new seeds and food processing methods. She said with modern technology and new machines, farming had become rather easy and smooth these days.

"In Delhi, most of the vegetables come from the surrounding areas of the city due to which the freshness of the vegetables cannot be maintained. As we don't have that advance techniques to make these fresh.

“In Delhi, 40,000 hectare land is still fertile and if even half of this land is used for farming, the people would be able to get fresh vegetables to a greater extend," she said.

NAFED chairman Dr Bijendra Singh and local MLA Bharat Singh were among others present on the occasion.

New Delhi, April 30
Five unidentified armed men in undergarments (kachhadhari gang) robbed an elderly couple of cash and gold and diamond jewellery worth lakhs of rupees from their residence in the Greater Kailash-I area of southeast Delhi in the wee hours of this morning.

According to information, the couple's sons, both are chartered accountants, were asleep when the robbery took place around 3 am. According to the police, the victims, Sitaram Bansal (66) and his wife Sneha Bansal (64) live on the ground floor of B-277 and were held captive at knifepoint by the robbers who then ransacked the house and escaped away with the valuables.

"The robbers were five in number and according to the victims they were wearing undergarments only. They easily entered the house compound by jumping the walls and after breaking the latch of the front door, entered the house.

Before the couple could make noise, they held them at gunpoint and threatened to kill their sons if they made any noise.

Scared, Bansal gave them the keys to his locker from which they escaped with 18 tola gold, six diamond rings, two cell phones and cash around Rs 1 lakh," said a police official.

A case in this regard has been registered and further investigation is on.

According to the police, while the couple was being robbed, their son Mohit and his wife Namita, and another son Bhashkar and his wife Neha, were sleeping in their rooms on the first floor.

The servants of the house, Vinod, Akhilesh and Arti also kept sleeping in their rooms on the ground floor.

According to the police, the robbers first tried to enter the adjoining house B-277, but when they did not succeed they hit upon the aged couple.

The police believe this to be a handiwork of notorious kacchadhari gang, known for their violence while committing the late night robberies.

According to a police official close to the investigation, the servants of the house are also being questioned and are prime suspect as of now.

New Delhi, April 30
The weekend today began on a scorching note for the city residents as the Capital recorded the hottest April morning of the year with the minimum temperature settling at 27.9° C, four degrees above the average for this time of the season.

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the days are likely to get hotter in the coming days as May proceeds.

The maximum temperature as well, touched 41.1° C, for the first time this season.

For tomorrow, the weather department has forecast mainly clear skies and a sunny with the maximum and the minimum temperatures likely to hover between 41° and 28° C.

"There is no possibility of rain in the next couple of days and the temperature will rise further," added the IMD official.

The humidity recorded this morning was 34 per cent.

On April 25 too, the maximum temperature touched 40° C. April this year has been the coolest in the past 10 years.

According to the IMD, around this time last year, the temperature had soared to 43.7° C.

with the introduction of the new porter and cab services on stations of the Airport Metro Express Line, passengers can now call for porters to ferry their luggage to check-in counters or the Metro trains. They can also book a cab from inside the station premises.

Reliance Infrastructure, operator for Airport Metro, has roped in Easy Cabs for taxi services and Sindhu Holding Services for porter facilities. Counters of Easy Cabs have been set up at the New Delhi and Shivaji Stadium Metro stations and a booking clerk and customer care executive take calls throughout the operational hours from 5 am to 11 pm.

Similar counters are also being planned for the other stations on the line. The porter service is available at all the four operational stations-Dwarka Sector 21, IGI Airport, Shivaji Stadium and New Delhi - where trained porters are present with luggage trolley at the entry of the stations for Rs 50. The cab service is post-paid and available at a cost of Rs 20 per km. Commuters can take the service even for going to Noida, Ghaziabad and tourist destinations like Agra and Jaipur.

Faridabad, April 30
The owners of houses running commercial ventures on their premises have prepared themselves for a showdown with the district administration and the Municipal Corporation Faridabad (MCF) in case the government insists that they should get the status of their premises changed to commercial category.

The MCF has already served notices on the owners, most of whom have also leased out their premises for commercial purpose. The house owners, many of them double up as shopkeepers and traders, have united under the banner of Faridabad Vyapaar Mandal. They have already submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, as well as the ministers and Congress MLAs hailing from Faridabad district, demanding annulment of the notices. They had set today as the deadline for the government to spell out its position to their demand.

The owners through the Vyapaar Mandal had asked the government that the cut-off date for implementing the 'Change of Land Use' (CLU) scheme must be 2006.

Also, the government must charge the CLU fee similar to the one fixed on land for setting up malls and other shopping plazas along the Faridabad-Mathura national highway, which was fewer than 500 meters from the residential premises.

According to them, while the rate along the highway was only Rs 500 per sq yd, the CLU rates for the house have been fixed at Rs 11,500 per sq yard along the 100-ft-wide road and Rs 9,500 per sq yd along smaller roads in the city.

The house owners' case was that they had been running the commercial ventures in their houses for the past four decades. Also, they were paying house taxes and other imposts at commercial rates. Hence, there was no justification for the CLU as their dwelling units were already recognised as commercial entities.

The president of the Faridabad Vyapaar Mandal, Jagdish Bhatia, told TNS that the overwhelming mood among the owners of houses was to wade into direct action against the government from Monday. Although the Vyapaar Mandal was yet to take a formal decision on the issue, the owners, in the first phase of the agitation are contemplating for a dharna for a fortnight followed by a fortnight in which the owners would stage a fast at the dharna site.

The next level of the proposed agitation would be to indulge in non-cooperation movement with the government in which no taxes would be paid by the shopkeepers. The programme could contain indefinite closure of markets in Faridabad.

There are more than 30,000 dwelling units in Faridabad district, the concentration being in the NIT area of this city, which have to go in for CLU if the MCF's directive is given effect.

New Delhi, April 30
Three Nigerians, along with their Indian counterpart, have been arrested by the crime branch of the Delhi police for cheating several people by luring them to believe that they have won £5 crore lottery and would have to deposit small fee to get the payment.

According to Ashok Chand, DCP (crime), the accused have been identified as John (34), Davies Inemhonlan (31), Sunday Mokobi (38), all are Nigerians, and Sameer Ahmed, a resident of Seelampur in Delhi.

"They were apprehended following investigations into a complaint by Arvind Kumar that he had been cheated of Rs 4.70 lakh by someone who had promised him an online lottery of £5 crore via SMS and e-mail," said Chand. The victims belong to different parts of the country and are mostly well to do and educated people, he added.

According to Chand, the gang is specialised in sending text messages and fake spoofed e-mail of lottery wins. "The location of the sender is difficult to find in such spoofed e-mails. The gang then notifies the victim through the e-mail that releasing funds would require some fee on the pretext of citing cost of transfer fee, insurance, registration, RBI endorsement fees, IT, customs duty," Chand said.

The gang leader, John, is a diploma holder in estate management and came to India in 2005 and is staying illegally here for some time. Davies, a graphic designer, and Mokobi, who hold a degree in mass communication, joined John and others in running the fake lottery scam. Ahmad got bank accounts opened and facilitated the Nigerian gang in using the accounts to get money from their victims at 10 per cent cut.

New Delhi, April 30
A four-year-old girl was crushed to death by a tractor-trailer in the Aman Vihar area of outer Delhi this morning.

According to the police, the incident took place around 8 am and the victim girl has been identified as Payal, daughter of Raju.

"Payal was going with her father to fetch milk when a loaded tractor-trailer coming from the opposite side hit her in the narrow lane close to their house. She received head injuries and died on her way to hospital," said a police official.

A case of causing death due to negligent driving (304-A of the IPC) has been registered against the errant driver who managed to flee from the spot.

The body has been sent to Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital for the postmortem while hunt is on to nab the driver.

New Delhi, April 30
A trial court has awarded over Rs 6 lakh compensation to the family of a motorcyclist who died after being hit by a speeding van in 2008.

The court, in an order given on April 26, held van driver Vikram Singh responsible for the accident and guilty under the Motor Vehicles Act.

Motor Accident Claim Tribunal Judge Preeti Agarwal Gupta awarded Rs 4.97 lakh apart from around Rs 1.1 lakh interest to the family members of 21-year-old Ram Chand.

"A driver behind the wheels of a mechanically propelled vehicle is under bounden duty to observe necessary caution for avoiding striking other vehicles…having struck the motorcycle of the petitioner, causing grievous injuries to him, Vikram Singh was berserk and thus negligent," the court said.

Ram Chand, who worked as a supervisor in a factory, was killed on July 22, 2008, around 7.30 am when he was going on his motorcycle towards Sector 20, Rohini, in north Delhi.

The speeding van came from the opposite direction and hit his motorcycle.

The impact was so strong that Ram Chand was thrown off his motorcycle and sustained serious injuries. He died on way to hospital.

The court directed the insurance company to pay the awarded sum within a month along with an interest of 7.5 per cent per annum from the date when the case was filed in September 2008. — IANS

Ghaziabad, April 30
An amount of Rs 1.24 lakh was allegedly withdrawn from the bank account of sub-inspector after forging his signature here, the police said here today.

The money was withdrawn from the savings bank account of police sub-inspector Ram Kishor at a nationalised bank in Modinagar by unknown persons, it said.

Kishor, a resident of Modinagar and posted in Eta district, went to withdraw money from his account yesterday and noticed that Rs 1.24 was missing from it.

Few months back he had deposited Rs 3 lakh in the account after selling his property.

He has filed a complaint against the bank manager. The police said investigation was on. — PTI