ERP for private vehicles in Mangaluru: Senthil Kumar
MANGALURU: In a bid to provide a smooth functioning of public transport and to reduce the traffic congestion, Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner Sasikanth Senthil suggested to introduce Electronic Road Price (ERP) in the city.
The DC briefed about the ERP to media persons after proposing it in the RTA meeting recently.
Senthil said "Mangaluru - being one of the developing cities, is facing major traffic which has made it difficult for people to travel around the city. It is better to implement ERP for private vehicles which are unnecessarily entering the city. Under ERP system, private vehicle owners have to pay a certain amount to enter the city during peak hours. As it is an electronic system, the amount will be deducted directly from e-wallets of the vehicle's owner. Similar systems have already been implemented in Singapore, and they have seen excellent results from this."
He said "soon, a meeting In this regard will be held with the officials of Mangaluru City Corporation and elected representatives. The minute details like the type of vehicles to be brought under ERP system, area and amount will be fixed after taking suggestions in various phases."
Appropriate as per healthcare
Senthil said "Increase in the traffic movement leads to widening of roads. Due to which, old buildings and monuments in the city are facing problems. With the regulation of ERP system, private vehicles' entry will be reduced in the city. With that, we can get rid of traffic congestion and air pollution also."
"At present, this system (ERP) does not exist in our country. If this system gets implemented in Mangaluru, It will become a model for rest of the cities in India. The ERP system, which does not require any major investment, can be introduced along with the Smart City mission," he said.
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Kerala: ED files money laundering case in Sabarimala gold loss case
Thiruvananthapuram/New Delhi (PTI): The Enforcement Directorate on Friday filed a money laundering case in the Sabarimala gold loss case in Kerala, official sources said.
The federal probe agency's Kochi zonal office has registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), an ED equivalent of a police FIR, under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), they said.
The politically sensitive case is already being investigated by a state special investigation team (SIT) under the supervision of the Kerala High Court.
In December, the high court had allowed the ED to undertake an independent investigation into the case after it dismissed objections raised by the SIT against sharing the case information with the central agency.
The SIT is probing two cases related to the gold loss incident and has arrested 11 people so far. The latest to be arrested by the SIT was Kandararu Rajeevaru, the chief priest of the Lord Ayyappa temple.
The other prominent persons arrested in the case by the SIT are Bengaluru-based businessman and prime accused Unnikrishnan Potty and former Travancore Devaswom Board president A Padmakumar.
The ED is expected to soon look for more evidence, question the accused, and it may also go on to attach certain assets of those involved if it finds that they generated "proceeds of crime", according to the officials.
The probe is related to a series of irregularities, including official misconduct, administrative lapses and a criminal conspiracy to misappropriate the gold from the various artefacts of the Lord Ayyappa shrine.
The investigation by the SIT, and now by the ED, is related to the loss of gold from the gold-cladded copper plates of the Dwarapalaka (guardian deity) idols and the door frames of the Sreekovil (sanctum sanctorum) of the temple.
The SIT has informed the High Court that its probe found "a series of serious official misconduct and administrative lapses on the part of the Devaswom officials right from the initial correspondence till the handing over of the door frame plates, connected plates, Dwarapalaka plates and pillar plates to Unnikrishnan Potty without proper authorisation".
It further said in its statement that Govardhan, Pankaj Bhandari, the CEO of Chennai-based Smart Creations, which carried out the electroplating of the artefacts from the temple, Potty and the other accused hatched a criminal conspiracy with malicious intention to misappropriate the gold cladded on the copper plates in and around the shrine.
"It is found during the investigation that all these criminal activities were part of a large conspiracy and an organised crime committed by the accused persons.
"They had a larger plan to dismantle other gold-clad items on the Sabarimala Sreekovil and to extract the gold from them for misappropriation," it said.
