The report released today by Delhi’s Finance and Planning Minister Dr. A K Walia on “Housing Conditions in Delhi” says that majority of the households in Delhi are nuclear family households. In urban area of Delhi around 76% of the total households found having just one married couple. Only 10% households were found having two or three married couples. According to survey only 8% households have two married couples and 2% per having three or more married couples.

The report, prepared by the Directorate of Economics & Statistics on the basis of survey conducted under 65th National Sample Survey Round during July 2008- June 2009, says that the residents of about 10% households in the city still have no facility for toilets and they use public toilets.

The survey also talks about distance travelled by city residents to go to the workplace. About 44% to the total households used to travel up to 5 km. from the place of their residents to their workplace, 26% from 5 to 10 kms, 11% from 10 to 15 kms and 3% from 15-30 kms.

Service sector is the largest job provider in the city as around 60% of the total households were engaged in service sector, 21% in manufacturing sector and 8% in construction activities.

The direction has been given by the Lt. Governor, who is also chairman of DDA, on Friday during the approval of budget. It is notable that DDA has developed 2600 parks in Delhi. He said that there should be considerable emphasis on the development of greens and that the status of all the 2600 parks in Delhi developed by DDA should be assessed through an update survey to pinpoint deficiencies and report to be submitted within three months.
It was also decided to develop four more district parks on the line of Swarn Jayanti Park, Rohini. Apart from it DDA is developing two swimming pools in Kanti Nagar and Pratap Nagar.

Presently, the sports infrastructure of DDA comprises 14 sports complexes, 39 multigyms, 26 play fields, 20 fitness trails, 2 Golf Courses and 14 swimming pools. A consolidated outlay of Rs. 84.06 Crore has been allocated for the year 2011-12 for development and maintenance of sports facilities.

The endeavour titled ‘Clean Delhi Drive’ will be launched by an NGO under the aegis of its ongoing ‘Meri Dilli Meri Yamuna’ campaign which will culminate Sep 6-12 in the Clean Delhi Day.

Under this, more than 1,000 private, government and special schools across Delhi and NCR will be joining the Art of Living volunteers in the ‘Clean Delhi Drive’ wherein they will adopt a site close to their location and ensure its maintenance and cleanliness.

There are 48 cash prizes to be awarded to the students including 10 prizes each of Rs.5,000 for children from special and underprivileged schools.

Minister of Human Resource Development, Kapil Sibal will be the chief guest at the function to be held Monday while Delhi minister for Education and Transport A.S. Lovely, Mayor of Delhi Prithviraj Sawhney, Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) Commissioner K.S. Mehra and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representative for India Karen Hulshof will be the guests of honour.

As part of the ‘Clean Delhi Drive’, musical concerts and ‘nukkad nataks’ (street plays) will be held in colleges, universities and educational institutions to exhort the students to join the campaign.

Further, 35 strategic sites related to the Commonwealth Games will be selected for cleanliness drives in the city including key tourist spots, market places and historical monuments.

Sep 12 will be celebrated as Clean Delhi Day and will see the convergence of thousands of citizens, market associations, Resident Welfare Associations (RWA), corporates, schools, colleges and dignitaries from the world of politics, art and culture. (IANS))

The King of fruits is much in demand demand in countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Amsterdam, China and United States. India is exporting mango to UAE, China, USA and Australia and other countries. The festival provides a platform to explore opportunities for mango growers and traders in this regard while mango lovers get opportunity to see and taste the large varieties of mango at a place.

Inaugurating the festival Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said that Mango Festival has become an annual celebration of the city and everybody wait for the festival throughout the year.

He also said that Delhi would set up two SEZs , one for Gem and Jewellery industry and another for IT , under the public private partnership (PPP) in a span of 30 months with the help of Delhi State Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC). This will create direct and indirect employment for over two lakh people.

It is notable that a new comprehensive industrial policy has been approved by Delhi Cabinet on Monday. The new policy focuses non-polluting industries like IT, IT enabled services, Hi-tech, sophisticated knowledge based and services and discourages labour-intensive manufacturing sector. As Haroon says that the government is now focusing on Infrastructure development, decongestion, promoting ‘walk to work’, industry consultation and other areas.

The Union government has already been approved both the SEZs in last month. While the SEZ for Gems and Jewellery will be set up in an area of 41.4 acres at an estimated cost of rupees 489 crore the IT SEZ will cost around rupees 395 crore and will have an area of 26 acre. The IT SEZ will have a convention halls, hotels, hospitals and residential accommodation. IT SEZ will provide direct employment to 36000 people and indirect employment to 1.08 lakh people.

It is notable that these Eco-Clubs have played an important role to increase green area in Delhi and to make successful campaigns like anti fire-crackers, say no to plastic bags, rain water harvesting and several other campaigns related to better and green environment in the city. These Eco-clubs were started in 1998 with a participation of 100 schools. Now the number of such schools having their eco-clubs has been increased by 25 times. There about 2500 Eco-Clubs in the schools and colleges. About 100 colleges and educational institutions too have been included in this category over a period of time.

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has been interacting with the representatives and member students of Eco-Clubs regularly and discusses several issue about the environment. This time the role of these Eco-Clubs have become more important as Delhi is organizing Commonwealth Games this year.

The Council would in other words provide a Single Window System to deliver the services of the Govt. with more transparency, accuracy and speed. The Council would be headed by the Secretary and Commissioner of Industries Department and Joint Commissioner of Industries. There will be maximum 20 members in the council. Speaking to the media Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit expressed confidence that new mechanism will help in ensuring hassel free services to the prospective entrepreneurs and will also provide a conducive environment for Industrial growth.

It is notable that an entrepreneur has to face multiple agencies before getting final approval of his project. The single window system will help these entrepreneurs in terms of speedy approval of the projects.