THE TIMES OF INDIA, AHMEDABADWEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 20144 TIMES CITY

READYING FOR THE FESTIVALYogesh Chawda

An artisan works on a clay idol of Goddess Durga ahead of the Durga Puja at Sabarmati Railway Colony

Ahmedabad:Additional ses-sions judge G N Rana at theMirzapur rural court haskept his order pending till Oc-tober 1 on whether the courtshould issue a notice to PrimeMinister Narendra Modi inconnection with a complainton the alleged defective affi-davit filed during the 2012 as-

sembly elections.On Tuesday, the court

heard the arguments on anapplication filed by complai-nant Nishant Varma citingsection 401(2) of the CrPCthat the accused should begranted an opportunity to beheard before passing any or-der in the revision applica-tion. Varma has been seekingprosecution for Modi and re-turning officer P K Jadeja forleaving the column on Modi’smarital status blank in his2012 affidavit.

However, during the LokSabha elections in April thisyear, Modi named Jashoda-ben as his wife. Varma soughtaction against Modi and Ja-deja for this discrepancy.

A magisterial court turn-ed down Varma’s applicationon the ground that the com-plaint was filed more than ayear after the incident. How-ever, the court observed in itsorder that Modi was guilty ofconcealing information andliable to be punished undersection 125 (1)(3) of the Repre-sentation of People Act.

Varma has questionedthis order on the ground oflimitation. Meanwhile, heurged the court through advo-cate K R Koshti to ask Modiand Jadeja to state if theyhave to say anything aboutthe issue.

To this, special prosecutorR C Kodekar submitted thatthe complainant cannot es-pouse the accused’s cause,and terming Modi an accusedat this juncture is prematureand urged the court to dis-miss the plea.

Modi affidavit:Decision on Oct 1

Gandhinagar: Chief minis-ter Anandiben Patel will dis-tribute on Wednesday chequesworth Rs 1,652 crore to munici-pal corporations and nagarpa-likas for infrastructure pro-jects. The CM will distributethe cheques at a programme‘Gujarat-ni Shaan-DhbaktaSahero’ at Mahatma Mandir.

Of the grant-assistance ofRs 1,652 crore, Rs 936 crorewould be given to five munici-pal corporations, 132 nagarpa-likas and seven Urban Devel-opment Authorities (UDAs).While Rs 2.51 crore will be giv-en to three nagarpalikas forconstructing ‘Seva Sadan’, Rs47.22 crore will be given to 18nagarpalikas for water supplyand sewerage projects under‘Nirmal Gujarat Abhiyaan’,Rs 60 crore to five municipalcorporations and 119 nagarpa-likas for constructing 10,632toilets. Cheques of Rs 350 crorewill be given to seven munici-pal corporations, 25 nagarpali-kas and six UDAs for housesfor the poor.

Local bodiesto get ̀̀ 1,652cr for infra

Ahmedabad: Fears ofdrought and poor rains havedisappeared with the heavySeptember showers as 97%farmlands in Gujarat – 86.80lakh hectares – have beensown and are ready for newcrops.

The usual rain-shadowzone of the state, Saurashtra,has become the envy of allagriculturists of Gujarat. Thisregion has clocked 105.61%sowing, while rest of the statehas struggled to achieve 95%.In Saurashtra, excess rainshave gifted farmers with more

work this year. In this regionsowing usually takes place in36.14 lakh hectares, while thisyear, the farmed area hasgrown to 38.17 lakh hectares.

The state agriculture de-partment officials said thatsowing in Saurashtra beganquite early since the region gotgood rains. In north Gujaratsowing began in August wherefinally, with some late show-ers, sowing touched 92.73% ofthe usual sowing area — 18.54lakh hectares. In central andsouth Gujarat, sowing was92.43% and 91.64% respective-ly. While farming activity wasthe lowest — 80.82% — inKutch.

The officials said that ow-ing to intermittent rainfall inmany other parts of Gujarat,only five crops — cotton, paddy,guvar seeds, sesame seeds andfodder — have achieved 100%sowing.

Sept showers drive sowing to 97%86.80L Hectares

In State HaveBeen Sown

REGION-WISE*Area and sowing figures in lakh hectares, **Till August 7

Crop Total Sowing activityarea* 2014 2013

➤ Cotton 27.17 30.07 26.87➤ Groundnut 14.39 12.25 16.60➤ Sesame seeds 1.19 1.44 1.18➤ Castor 7.75 6.93 5.72➤ Vegetables 2.26 1.94 2.04➤ Maize 3.74 3.18 3.43➤ Paddy 7.37 7.63 7.87➤ Total (all crops) 86.80 84.36 87.96

LATE SURGE

Region Area SowingTotal activity

➤ Kutch 5.34 4.32➤ North Gujarat 18.54 17.19➤ Central Gujarat 19.08 17.93➤ Saurashtra 36.14 38.17➤ South Gujarat 7.70 7.06

Ahmedabad: Gujarat has recorded adecline of over 14% in employmentgenerated by Central Public Sector En-terprises (CPSEs) during the five yearsfrom 2008-09 to 2012-13, apex industrybody Assocham said on Tuesday.

About 46,300 people were employedby CPSEs in Gujarat in 2008-09 whichfell significantly to 39,700 people in2012-13, according to a study ‘Employ-ment Scenario in CPSEs,’ by Asso-cham.

Nationally, the number of peopleemployed by CPSEs (excluding con-tractual workers) came down fromabout 15,33,500 to 14,04,000 during thesame period — a fall of about 8%, high-lighted the study. “Punjab, Maharash-tra, Bihar and Odisha are the only fourstates of the 20 major states in Indiathat have seen an increase in employ-ment generated by CPSEs while all oth-ers recorded a fall ranging between 3%-22%,” said D S Rawat, secretary gener-al of Assocham.

CPSEs accounted for 4.7% of the to-tal employment generated by the pub-lic and private sectors as of 2012-13.Gujarat’s share in employment by

CPSEs in India has also marginally de-clined by 0.2%, from a 3% share in 2008-09 to 2.8% in 2012-13.

In investments made by CPSEs,Gujarat has ranked 12th with a 2.8%share as the state attracted invest-ments worth about Rs 15,200 crore ofthe Rs 5.5 lakh crore invested by CPSEsfrom 2008-09 to 2012-13.

Maharashtra alone claimed a 20%share, followed by AP (8.4%), Tamil Na-du (8.1%), Odisha (6.7%) and UP (6.2%)amid top five states attracting the mostinvestments by CPSEs. CPSEs invest-ment growth rate was 9.05% in 2012-13on a year-on-year basis as compared to13.42% in 2011-12, 9.48% in 2010-11 and15.52% in 2009-10, highlighted the study.Overall, the net profit of all 229 CPSEsduring 2012-13 stood at Rs 1.15 lakhcrore compared to Rs 0.98 lakh crore in2011-12 — an increase of 17.36%.

CPSE jobs in state fell14% in 5 yrs, says study

Ahmedabad: To plan to holdbidding for riverfront land hasonce again appeared on the me-nu of the Sabarmati RiverfrontDevelopment Corporation Lim-ited (SRFDCL). Sources in thestate urban development de-partment said that the post-Di-wali period is being eyed for thebidding process. Senior officialsin the AMC said that revenue de-partment is yet to finish assign-ing revenue survey numbers toparcels of land that had been re-claimed over the past five years.

“If we fail to complete therevenue procedures by Diwaliwe are eyeing the Vibrant Guja-rat Summit next year in Janu-ary for the announcement,” saida senior SRFDCL official.SRFDCL officials are cautiousabout the allocation of the plots.Initially, the SRFDCL will onlyauction one plot of the total plotsearmarked for sale on the pro-ject side — on the east and thewest banks.

Riverfrontland auctionafter Diwali?

Gandhinagar: Parshottam So-lanki, former minister of statefor fisheries in the NarendraModi government and key Kolileader of the state BJP, who wasdropped from the cabinet bychief minister Anandiben Patelin May, seems to be in a mood torevolt against the party. OnTuesday, he called a meeting ofKoli leaders in Gandhinagar todiscuss poor representation ofthe community in the govern-ment and party and announce ademand for greater representa-tion in government and party.

Solanki said, “The commu-nity is not happy with the BJP asit hasn’t got any representationin the government or party.They were requesting me to dosomething so I met them today. Iheard them. No one is againstthe party but they want morerepresentation. There are 11MLAs from the Koli communitybut no one has been given a placein the government. It isn’t that Iwant to be minister, but some-

one from the community shouldget a chance. I have decided tomeet the chief minister and par-ty president after Navratri to ex-press the community’s expecta-tions from the party. I amhopeful that the CM and partywill do us justice.”

Solanki was dropped follow-ing his proven involvement inthe Rs 400 crore fisheries scam.Modi was reportedly unhappywith him and so he was droppedby Patel from the new cabinet.BJP gave the second highestnumber of tickets to the Kolicommunity in the recent LokSabha elections, so BJP canclaims that the community’srepresentation is ample.

Parshottam Solankiin rebellious mood

BHAI BHAI

TOI

HOW ALERTS ARE SENTAnkur.Tewari@timesgroup.com

In 2001, Gujarat witnessed one of the most devastating earthquakes in the country, which claimed

more than 14,000 lives. Now imagine if we had a device that could fore-warn people of an earthquake and save thousands of lives.

Coincidentally, a Gujarat-based institute, IIT-Gandhinagar, has de-veloped affordable sensors that have accelerometers similar to ones in cellphone. After you connect the sen-sor to your cellphone and download an application from community seis-mic network (CSN) website, you are immediately part of the data collec-tion network. Once connected, your phone turns into a simple seismom-eter that can detect vibrations from earthquakes.

“CSN data is used during an earthquake to provide very high resolution data on actual ground shaking in realtime to users. The system aims at densely populating the earthquake prone regions with low-cost accelerometer sensors which send the seismic activity log of its vicinity to the cloud and the data gets stored in the server which can be retrieved as per require-

ments. The data can also be used to detect ambient vibrations of the building within which they are kept and the building’s response to situations involving s e v e r a l other types of vibra-tions. In f u t u r e , these can be used in developing an earth-quake-ear-ly-warning system,” said Prof Dhiman Basu, department of civil engi-neering, IIT-Gn.

He said: “A number of these sen-sors have been installed in LD Col-lege to check the efficiency along side the community seismic net-work which is presently mapped over regions in and around Pasade-na and Los Angeles, California in the US.” IIT-Gn. The institute has tied up with Caltech’s CSN, which has been running an earthquake

monitoring project. How many min-utes prior to quake alerts can be sent? It depends on the distance of epicenter from the user and veloc-ity of tremors, Prof Basu said. These sensors will continuously col-lect the acceleration data of the vicinity which, in turn, will help in characterization of the ambient vibrations of the arena.

These sensors, through cloud computing, can not only identify the location of earthquake but also the

position of the user

They calculate the distance between the user and the epicenter as well as the velocity

at which the quake is progressing. Based on this, it issues an alert

The sensors cost around `3,000

These sensors can be installed in any internet-

enabled device like a laptop, smartphone or desktop

computer

Data can also be used to detect ambient vibrations in building they

are in, as well as the building’s response to situations involving several other types of vibrations

Sensors are in the form of an electronic chip and are connected to

the person’s device via a combination of on-the-go (OTG cable) and a micro USB-to-USB cable

The connection powers and collects data from the sensor. The computing device is to be powered through the usual 230V single phase AC supply. The device will host the sensor data and send it to the cloud by 2G/3G GSM internet connections

They enable scientific construction of 3D geologic models of the ground beneath the sensors, which will influence land use policy and construction codes

IIT-Gn Developing Tech That Could Save Thousands

Illustration: Siddhartha

Your phone could predict earthquakes

Ahmedabad: As many as 14lakh bank accounts have beenopened by various banks inGujarat under Pradhan Man-tri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY)since August. Over 8 lakhhouseholds have been coveredunder the scheme which waslaunched by Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on August 28.

“There are 1.22 crorehouseholds in Gujarat, ofwhich 93 lakh householdshave one or more bank ac-counts as of now. Around 28lakh more bank accounts willbe opened in the state by Janu-ary 26 under PMJDY,” saidAshwani Kumar, chairmanand managing director of De-na Bank.

Bank of Baroda and DenaBank have opened 3.26 lakhand 3.06 bank accounts underPMJDY followed by 1.4 lakhaccounts opened by StateBank of India. Households inthe Mehsana district have thehighest bank accounts with93% coverage, followed byGandhinagar (92%) and Bhav-

nagar (91%).According to latest State

Level Bankers’ Committee(SLBC) report, the gross ad-vances of the banks in thestate is Rs 3,48,667 crore andgross non-performing assets(NPA) is Rs 14,046 crore, 4.03%of total advances as of June

2014. “The sentiments haveimproved in the market.There are positive indicatorsfor revival of economy and thechallenge will be to sustainthe sentiments,” added Ku-mar.

MSME advances 43%According to SLBC report,

against the annual target ofRs 12,064 crore, loans worth Rs4,448 crore (43%) were dis-bursed in micro, small andmedium enterprises (MSME)sector by various banks in thestate in the first quarter of2014-15. In case of agri sector,loans worth Rs 18,604 crore(37%) were disbursed in thefirst quarter against the an-nual target of Rs 49,889 crore.

Home loans down by 23%Due to slowdown in real es-

tate and higher interest rates,demand for home loans saw adrop of 23.35% in first quarterin 2014-15 compared to sameperiod in 2013-14 as fewer peo-ple applied for home loans.Home loans worth Rs 1,106.84crore were granted to 14,428

beneficiaries during April-June 2014 under Direct Hous-ing Finance compared to dis-bursement of Rs 1,443.49 croreof loan to 16,834 beneficiariesin the same period in 2013-14.

Education loans up by 46%As more and more stu-

dents continue to opt for high-er studies, the request for edu-cation loans grew by almostdouble in first quarter of 2014-15 compared to same periodlast year. Banks have dis-bursed education loans to2,313 students to the tune of Rs47.63 crore during April-June2014 compared to Rs 32.89crore disbursed to 2,091 bene-ficiaries in same period in2013-14.

NRI deposits up by ̀̀ 492 crThe NRI deposits in-

creased by Rs 492 crore duringApril- June 2014. According tothe SLBC, NRI deposits in Guj-arat stood at Rs 47,445 crore,forming 10.86% of the total de-posits as of June 2014 againstRs 46,953 crore as of March2014.

14 lakh accounts opened underJan Dhan Yojana in Gujarat

Over 76% Of Households In State Have Bank Accounts

BANKING FOR ALL

TOI

Ahmedabad:A team of the citycrime branch arrested three per-sons involved in a number ofrobberies. The group used luxu-ry cars in the crimes, said inves-tigators.

According to crime branchofficials, the team caught Mu-kendrasinh Vaghela, 25, a resi-dent of Ranip; Bhavsang Tha-kor, 40, a resident ofGandhinagar; and JaydevsinhZala, 24, a resident of Ranip,with a luxury car near SubhashBridge Circle on Tuesday. Whenpolice examined the car num-ber, it did not match with the en-gine and chassis number regis-tered with the RTO.

“During questioning, the ac-cused confessed that they wereinvolved in the robbery of atruck carrying oil cans on Au-gust 20 near Ahmedabad-Vadod-ara expressway,” said a crimebranch official. “After the truckcrossed into the Vadodara side ofthe expressway, the group hadforced the driver to stop and ac-cused him of carrying liquor.While one of the group mem-bers drove off the truck, otherstook the driver in the car anddropped him near Kadi. Theempty truck was abandoned.”

3 robbersnabbed by

crime branch

Gujarat high court on Tuesday askedthe Gujarat Pollution Control Board(GPCB) to inspect and restrain the dis-charge of untreated water by the sea-food processing industry in VeravalGIDC into the sea. A PIL filed by Amar-sinh Chopra complained in 2012 that thelocal industries do not treat the dis-charge in the Common Effluent Treat-ment Plant (CETP) and pollute the seawater near the pilgrimage destinationof Somnath temple. The petitioner alsocomplained about non-use of the re-verse osmosis plant by the industrialassociation. The HC has asked GPCB tocheck the pollution levels and take ac-tion against the violators of law.

Revise pay of Nari Niketan staff,govt toldGujarat high court on Tuesday directedthe state government to revise the payscale of the employees with the crèchesthat function under the Nari NiketanKendras for the orphaned children ag-ing up to six years. A PIL filed by SushilaRathod complained that for years, theemployees got fixed salary of Rs 2,000.Following repeated requests, their sala-ry was increased to Rs 6,000, but the

Centre did not release funds. It wassubmitted that the employees were toreceive the revised payment fromMarch. The HC has asked the author-ities to see that the funds are releasedby October 10 and the employees getpaid according to the revised pay struc-ture.

Bar withdraws strikeThe Ahmedabad Criminal Lawyers’ BarAssociation at the metropolitan court atGheekanta withdrew their day-longstrike on Tuesday evening after Rs 2.73crore contract for installing eight newelevators in the building was awardedto a private firm. The lawyers had ag-itated last year after a liftman wasstuck in an malfunctioning elevator.The government assured action and re-leased funds, but there was no devel-opment since then. As the lawyers wenton strike on Tuesday, the authoritiesconveyed to them that the contract hadbeen awarded and the court buildingswould get new lifts in next nine months.

HC notice to Surat policeGujarat high court on Tuesday issuednotice to the Surat police for arresting KD Patel, an accused in the bribery caseinvolving Asaram’s son Narayan Sai andothers. The court has sought reply byOctober 7 in response to the petitioncomplaining that the HC had stayed thearrest warrant against Patel.

COURT BRIEFS

Act against seapolluters: HC to GPCB

Department of Posts has tied up with an e-commerce website to sell its philatelic products.Various presentation packs, publications andother philatelic items will be available on thewebsite under the category ‘Antiques and Col-lectibles’.

Finance Department to organize pre-

Vibrant Gujarat seminar on Thursday:

The Gujarat finance department will organize aninteractive seminar ‘Financing for EconomicGrowth: A Policy Roadmap’ on September 25,2014 at Mahatma Mandir. The event shall seeCM Anandiben Patel, finance minister SaurabhPatel, U K Sinha, chairman, SEBI, Urjit Patel, dep-uty Governor, RBI and Ila Patnaik, principal eco-nomic advisor to Government of India amongothers. The event will bring together expertsfrom business, government, and academia.

CITY DIGEST

Postal department to sellphilatelic products online

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