Express News Service
Special facility for senior citizens in cityThe Chandigarh administration has set up a specialised corner — Plaza Baithak — at Sector 17 Plaza for senior citizens. It has been developed by the Chandigarh branch of the Indian Red Cross Society. The timing will be between 11 am and 7 pm. There is a makeshift seating arrangement for around 25 persons, along with a provision for daily newspapers, magazines and some indoor games. A few physiotherapy modalities are also being provided for safe and effective physical activities. The aim behind the facility is to make the elderly people feel important by giving them a special place to relax and spend quality time.
Crackdown on usage of single-use plasticThe Chandigarh Pollution Control Committee (CPCC) is all set to launch a crackdown on shopkeepers selling or using single-use plastic during the festival season. The pollution watchdog will issue an advisory to all sweet shops against using the banned plastics and give them a handout with colour photographs of such items. Strict action would be initiated against the traders, if any violation of the norms are found out by the officials. The Chandigarh administration in September 2019 had imposed a ban on single-use plastic items, including cutlery, thermocol or styrofoam cutlery, containers, sealed drinking water glasses, single-use razors, single-use pens, wrapping sheets and plastic ribbons for decoration purpose.
Fewer birds likely at Sukhna Lake this yearThe Sukhna Lake might not host many migratory birds this year owing to high water level caused by heavy rainfall in the last month. The water level is just a few points down from the danger mark and has remained unchanged. The migratory birds — waterfowl, barheaded geese, ruddy shell duck, pochard, mallard and wigeon — start arriving here in the third week of October. Now, they’ll be attracted towards the shallow Nagar Van constructed three years ago. There have been a decrease in migratory birds arriving at the lake from 4,000 in 2017 to 1,500 in 2018 and 620 in 2019.
LIDAR mapping over, to help identify fastest routes to crime spotsThe Chandigarh administration has completed the mapping of the city through the Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) technology. This technology will help in generating three-dimensional information and high accuracy map of any area. It will prove beneficial in various aspects of urban planning such as mapping of road networks and traffic management besides spatial representation of diseases, study of disease pattern, tourist inflow mapping, site suitability analysis for schools and educational institutions and help identify the fastest routes to places where crimes occur.
