HDMC Turns Hublicity Into allergy capital of the State.

UGD works started by HDMC some 3 Months ago in HubliCity, has turned the City as Allergy Capital of the State. Right from Kamripet Police Station UGD work was carried out passing through Chenpet, Bharat Mill Road, Vikas Nagar, Shakuntala Hospital Road and some other parts of Old Hubli Area. The dust is so severe the residents of this area are suffering from dust allergy, numerous complaints were made to HDMC to complete the road works has fallen on deaf ears, its really horrible for two wheeler riders and pedestrians using this road.

Hospitals in the city have recorded a sudden spurt in the number of patients afflicted by allergies and eye infections and never ending dust cough….

Sunil Nalavade

Urinating in public is common in this commercial capital

Known as the commercial capital of north Karnataka, Hubli does not have enough number of public toilets, forcing people to use public places like school grounds and gardens to relieve themselves.

In all, there are about 100 public toilets in the city. This is inadequate, considering the growing population of the city and its status as an educational and commercial hub.

Several busy areas in the city do not have public toilets. And the existing ones are badly maintained. Some of them are broken, while some have no doors. Due to unavailability of water and lack of maintenance, the toilets stink and not in a condition to use.

The Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation has miserably failed in maintaining the toilets. Most of the toilets were constructed in 2005-06 and were given to private agencies to maintain. Due to the apathy of private agencies and lack of monitoring by the HDMC, toilets have rendered useless and a breeding ground for stray animals.

Main roads like the Court Circle, Dajibanpeth road, Koppikar road and swimming pool complex road do not have decent toilets and in some places there are no toilets at all.

"Some of the public toilets have not been cleaned for many days and we can't find public toilets in some areas of the city," said Iranna J, a resident.

Even the portable toilet booth, put by the corporation near the swimming pool complex road is stinking a lot. It has not been cleaned for many days. The stench is unbearable ,compelling people to cover their nose while walking on the road. Durgad bail corporater Rajeshri Jedi said, "There are no toilets in Belgaum galli and Butter market. People urinate in open spaces. We have given an estimation for construction of toilets to the corporation. The portable fibre toilet booths put in some places are serving no purpose."

New toilets to come up

Speaking to TOI, Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation commissioner K V Trilokchandra said: "We have planned to construct new toilet complexes in the city association with private agencies. We have placed fiber toilets in some areas as a temporary measure."

Public-private initiative planned to promote Hubli as investment hub

A new public-private platform is planned to promote Hubli-Dharwad region as the next investment destination in the State. The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Hubli Chapter has come forward to help promote the twin city in various national and global meets.

The Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister and Dharwad district-in-charge Minister, Mr Jagadish Shettar, addressing a TiECon 2012 session on 'Taking Leap From Rs 100 crore to Rs 10,000 crore: Pune Story and Hubli Road ahead,' said, "The district administration will support the public-private initiative and help bring together authorities, entrepreneurs and eminent personalities to promote Hubli-Dharwad as the next investment destination in the State."

"The public-private platform will be constituted in the next two months and I will instruct the district administration to reach out to the private sector to help constitute a co-ordination committee to being the process," he added.

Dharwad Deputy Commissioner, Mr Darpan Jain, made a presentation on the initiatives taken by the district administration to improve the infrastructure in the region and on the further plans like upgradation of the airport, Bus Rapid Transport System, rolling out of the 24x7 water supply project to the entire city and others.

As the moderator of the session, Prof Ashok Shettar, Principal of BVB College of Engineering, said the TiE Hubli Chapter was ready to take up the responsibility of co-ordination on the issue, and Mr Jain felt there was a need for a more concerted and co-ordinated effort for marketing the region. "We will take up the proposal for discussion and act on constituting a co-ordination committee within two months," Mr Shettar said.

The Karnatak Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) President speaking on the occasion, said the chamber has already joined hands with the administration in promoting the region. "We facilitated setting up of permanent exhibition centre in north Karnataka to come up in Hubli-Dharwad. Co-ordinated with Apeda and Kappec to set up cold storage facility in the region," he added.

Lessons from Pune

Speaking on the occasion, Commodore Anand Khandekar, President of Puna Chamber of Commerce and Industry, suggested a public-private platform is crucial to promote the twin cities.

Mr Khandekar, elaborating on the Pune model of developing the city into an investor-friendly region, talked about the strategy adapted by them to promote the city.

The Maratha Chamber of Commerce took up the responsibility of promoting the city through various initiatives. "There was no response in the beginning. But once it started, there was no need for further marketing," he said. anil.u@thehindu.co.in

 

Hubli to be promoted as the next IT hub

 

The Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (Keonics) is once again making efforts to push north Karnataka as the next IT hub in the State.

With Bangalore's saturation and companies looking for alternate locations for expansion, the Keonics has woken up to promote Hubli as an IT destination. In order to tap investments, it has lowered the rentals at IT Park Hubli.

Keonics quoted the NASSCOM survey findings that Hubli-Dharwad has 38 per cent cost advantage among the tier II cities in the country. This will be Keonics' second attempt to push for the north Karnataka region as an IT destination.

According to Mr H. Devanand, Manager, IT Park-Hubli, the Keonics has come out with a special rental package to encourage IT industries to set up base in Hubli.

"In order to attract them, especially the software developers, we have further reduced rent rate and fixed at Rs 5 a square feet a month. Also we may relax conditions placed before," he explained.

Currently Hubli-Dharwad houses companies like IonIdea Inc, Sankalp Semiconductor, Nabros, Neilsoft, Pro-Solutions, ClickHubli, Web Dreams and Able Design Engineering Services. Few new companies are being incubated inside the campus of BVB College of Engineering and Technology.

Keonics' move comes after two companies successfully set up their operations.

Mr Manohar Joshi, Director-Systems, IonIdea said, "The major benefits from business point of view, Hubli offers cost of living advantage of 25 per cent to 30 per cent of margins. We can afford to keep the bench and groom the freshers and make them industry-ready at relatively much lower cost."

"We have also discovered that the communication level has improved well in recent past among fresh graduates and they can be groomed to face global clients effectively and efficiently. It looks to be a workable place to establish ITES and professional services from Hubli in a cost effective manner," he added.

In the recent past, connectivity – both in terms of logistics and communication has improved in the town, said Mr. Ashok Shettar, a senior TiE-Hubli member and Principal, BVB College of Engineering & Technology.

However, what is most attractive in the town and surrounding areas today is the good work-life balance one gets. "Now people are increasingly complaining about quality of life in Bangalore," said Mr Shettar.

Simple life and low cost of living coupled with good opportunities for development and growth make Hubli a suitable destination for the IT sector

Hubli Musical Fountian.mp4

Fw: Know when next drop of water will come from your tap

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Sunil Nalavade

To: HubliCity - eGroup

Sent: Monday, September 19, 2011 8:02 AM

Subject: Know when next drop of water will come from your tap

 Emily Kumpel, a civil engineering PhD student of the University of California, who often visits India for research purpose was disturbed to see Hubli people waiting for long hours for water to arrive. What she noticed was the city hardly adhered to its water supply schedule, thereby causing a great deal of inconvenience to residents in several areas.

'Intermittent water supply in India' being her research topic, Emily, on her returning to California discussed the issue with her professor Tapan Parikh at the Berkeley School of Information, University of California and a few students at the Stanford School of Business.

What emerged out of this scholarly discussion was a brilliant idea that appears to go a long way in helping people of Hubli keep their date with water supply. People will no longer have to wait for indefinite hours for the volveman to release water. If they subscribe to the services of Nextdrop, a social-business venture started by Emily and her team in Hubli, they will get information about the exact day and time of water supply to their respective areas on their mobile phones. So they can make sure they are at home during those hours.
When the idea of providing information to citizens through SMS struck them, Emily and her team, comprising students from the Stanford School of Business and the University of California, pooled funds from the class and decided to run a pilot project in Hubli. On arriving at Hubli, they came up with their novel project - Nextdrop - and launched it on a trial basis to cater to 230 families in a Hubli area.

Encouraged by the overwhelming response to the pilot project, the group deiced to convert the project into a full fledged social business in Hubli. Plans are afoot to extend it to Dharwad in the coming days.

Nextdrop is an integrated network between residents and valvemen. Explaining about how the system works, Nextdrop co-founder and CEO Anu Sridharan said valvemen will use their mobile phones to call an interactive voice response (IVR) system to inform people well in advance about when they plan to open the valves in a particular area. These reports will be used to generate SMS updates that will be sent to local residents 30-60 minutes prior to delivery.

In addition, the residents will be contacted randomly through IVR system to verify the accuracy of information provided by valvemen. Updates from valvemen will be turned into streaming visual data using a web-based dashboard powered by Google maps. This tool will help engineers track the status of valves throughout the city in real time, while crowd-sourced information will help compare the feedback from residents with reports from valvemen to create a feedback loop. In case of a conflict between two reports, engineers at the utility will be alerted, enabling them to address the problem.

To keep the social business running, each family will be charged Rs 10 per month for the services. For BPL families charges are Rs 5, said Anu.

"The technological principles behind Nextdrop are not new. The idea is based on the model of crowd-sourcing that has been around for a while. You could call Nextdrop a mix between Amazon Mechanical Turk, a crowd-sourcing Internet marketplace, and Next Bus, a popular Californian website that tells you when your next bus will arrive so you don't have to wait indefinitely," said Anu.

The idea has bagged several international cash awards from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Knight Foundation and Google, Clinton Global Initiative University, Centre For Information Technology Research, GSM Association Mwomen Programme, Global Social Venture Competition and Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition.

HDMC commissioner K V Trilokchandra said it is a value added service to which residents can enroll voluntarily.

Fw: [HubliCity] Death is sure

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Max Footwear - Industrial Safety Shoes

To: hublicity@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, September 12, 2011 7:24 PM

Subject: [HubliCity] Death is sure

Dear Member's ,                 Kindly be caution while traveling to goa by Kittur -Bidi-londa-Ramnagar-Anmod by car , roads have become such a death trap if you travel by car.           As every tourist has become fed up with our State highway as they are not even bothered to take any alternate steps to fill the big 2 feet pot holes, as I have seen  there were 5 trucks in different places meet with accident in different places                I am realy ashmed of the administration of state highway that they mantiane, once youe enter the Goa border you feel that you are in heaven on there roads.                   As this road is a busy tourist movement road I feel petty on there journey on these roads, as to what they say of our country.       M.J.Airani

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