A 14 year old boy, driving an SUV, lost control over a curve and hit a school girl in Greater Noida on Friday.

A student of Astor Public School in Greater Noida’s Delta-II area, Manisha Pal was hit near the Omaxe Crossing round-about around 2:30 p.m. Manisha was going back home on her cycle when the incident occurred.

The teenager driving the SUV is also a student of Astor. He had picked up his young niece, studying in class 2, and had given a lift to two other friends who were also injured in the accident.

Brothers Sumit (13) and Shubham Rawal (15) sustained injuries and according to Salil Kapoor, medical superintendent of Kailash Hospital Manisha and Shubham have serious head injuries and are critical.

The erring teenager after hitting Manisha tried to reverse the vehicle in panic, but banged into a divider instead after which the car overturned and caught fire.

Indian Business Academy (IBA) situated in Greater Noida will be organizing their annual festival ‘Spardha’ on 20^th and 21^st February 2010.

In the year 2006, the pioneer batch of IBA, Greater Noida came up with Spardha. The idea was to ignite the spirit of competition among the students, and give them the opportunity to unwind, express themselves, participate, compete and win awards.

This year too, IBA is hosting literary, cultural and sports events centered on the innovative concept of “YUVA- Live Your life”. The Academy has chosen ‘Rancho’ as their mascot as he has all the qualities and potential of an all- rounder.

For more details log on to: www.spardha.in

The Floriculture Society of Noida in association with Noida Authority is organizing ‘Vasant Utsav 2010’ – a flower show from February 26^th to 28^th at the Noida Stadium.

As a part of Vasant Utsav, a garden competition will be organized on 12^th, 13^th, 22^nd and 23^rd of February in which trophies will be awarded to the top three finalists.

Participants include not only the residents of Noida and Greater Noida but Corporates, Schools, Colleges, Residential Societies, Clubs, Factories and Community Centre parks too.

Gardens of the following types are included in the Residential Garden Category: 1) Large Gardens above 50 sq. mtr. 2) Medium Gardens between 25 – 50 sq. mtrs., 3) Small gardens uptp 25 sq. mtrs. including roadside gardens and 4) Terrace Gardens.

The last date of sending entry forms is February 10^th. For entry forms and further details contact one of the following:

Col. K.K Sharma – 2450503, Gaur: 2450226, G.B Pant: 4352318, S. Gambhir: 2527455, Grover: 4329467

The people of Greater Noida will now be relieved, as their major problem of commuting is on the brink of solution as of Delhi metro. The Greater Noida Authority has decided to extend the metro line from Sector 32, Noida to Pari Chowk, Greater Noida.

According to the Senior Greater Noida official, the proposal was discussed in detail amongst the officials of Delhi metro, Noida and Greater Noida authorities. The detailed project report of the metro line extension, drawn by the engineers and senior officials was studied and a blueprint is now under construction.

The proposed metro line to Greater Noida would have another five stations in Noida before connecting to Greater Noida at Pari Chowk. “The five more stations in Noida are planned at Sector-50, Sector-78, Sector-101, Sector-82, and Sector-92” said a senior Greater Noida official.

The five new stations till Pari Chowk will cover 29 kilometers along the proposed extension. The corridor will be stretched to 35 kilometer when it enters Greater Noida. The panel of experts will finalize the location of the stations.

The officials of Noida and Greater Noida Authorities have put the estimated cost for the proposed Metro facility of Rs 4,000 crore.

Presently, DMRC’s phase-two plan in Noida comprises a seven-kilometer stretch from the Delhi border to Sector-32 city centre in Noida. There are six stations on the line that expected to be opened by later this year.

According to DMRC spokesperson Anuj Dayal , “The Greater Noida Authority has asked us to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) as there are plans to come up with an airport express link from Noida’s Sector-32 to the proposed international airport in Greater Noida (at Jevar). We have to prepare the terms of reference to prepare the DPR.

The body of a 28-year-old man was found in Greater Noida on Thursday, the police said.

The victim was identified as Santosh Verma, a supervisor working in a construction company. Verma’s body was discovered Thursday morning lying alongside the Sector-37 canal in the Kasna area of Greater Noida, the police said.

“We are investigating the case. His family is being called. We have sent the body for postmortem examination,” said an official at the Kasna police station.

Noida: Industrial rents in Greater Noida, on the outskirts of New Delhi, posted a growth of 25% year-on-year in 2008, the eighth highest annual growth in the world, according to a report by real estate advisory Cushman and Wakefield Inc.

The annual report, titled ‘Industrial Space Across the World’, provides a detailed analysis of prime industrial property rental performance and occupancy costs across the globe. The latest report is based on a survey of 135 locations.

Greater Noida, which falls in Uttar Pradesh, was planned with an aim to attract medium and large-scale industries. Industrial rents in the city primarily moved nothwards last year because vacancy levels were marginal and there was limited supply that came into this market. So demand overpowered supply in the area. Also, sectors such as engineering goods, electronic goods, auto and auto ancillary showed interest in setting up units in Greater Noida and the area was promoted as an ideal campus location.

Peenya Industrial Area and Bommasandra Industrial Area, both in Bangalore, recorded the 12th and 16th highest annual growth, respectively, in the report, which ranks London’s Heathrow as the most expensive industrial location in the world.

“Traditionally expensive industrial locations like Mumbai, Pune, Chennai have seen a slowdown due to high price points and large scale development in recent years,” said Harleen Oberoi, executive director, industrial services, at Cushman and Wakefield. “Slowdown in the economy has affected the general uptake of industrial spaces, especially by large multinational corporations who were in the recent years keenly looking at India.”

GREATER NOIDA: Three women were killed and 22 persons injured, five of them seriously, when a speeding Honda City car crashed into a mini truck on Sunday.

Official’s wife Surbhi who was staying in sector 27. Police sources said the incident took the death toll on the 5-year-old Noida-Greater Noida Expressway to over 70.

The collision occurred about two kilometres from Pari Chowk when both the vehicles were heading towards Greater Noida. The collision threw the mini truck off the expressway after breaking through the divider. The Honda City car also somersaulted.

Kasna police station chief, Ajay Chowdhary, said, “We found some bottles in the car and Ali Zahir of sector 50 an executive with an FM channel had consumed beer. He was the one who appeared to have been driving.”

The mini truck, carrying a party of mourners from a funeral in Noida, was hit from the rear. While 16 victims were rushed to Kailash Hospital, six were taken to Sharda Hospital. Doctors at Kailash Hospital said five of the them had serious head and other injuries and were on life support system. Zahir was also admitted to the intensive care unit of the hospital.

A police officer said, “We have booked the car driver for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. This was far from a simple case of rash and negligent driving,” he added.

Greater Noida is already in short of power and to make the matters worse Uttaranchal Vidyut Vitaran Nigam (UVVN) had only added to this pain.

Noida Power Company Limited official spokesperson Mr Samarjit Mohanty revealed that the Nigam has asked to pay a higher rate of Rs 2.70 as earlier decided by the state authority and now Nigam has warned that it will stop supply. Noida Power Company limited has now challenged the notice in court and their hearing date is on 8th January.

Greater Noida is already short of power supply. Its requirement is 110 mega watts but so far only 75 mega watts are generated for the area. 45mw are coming from NPCL and another 30 mw from private players.

The township will lost its half power supply following the standoff between the two parties. Meanwhile, Nigam general Manager Mr. K.G.Puri said, “The regulatory authority’s rate is for consumers, not profit-making power suppliers. The NPCL was expected to set up its own generation units by late 1990s, but, have still not done so. We have our own power supply problems.”

The global economic recession and the current real estate crisis has affected this satellite town neighbouring the national Capital, as various building projects are in jeopardy.

Builders having a stake of over Rs 1,000 crore in various Noida projects have demanded the Noida Authority to reschedule their interest installments.

According to builders, delay in the execution of projects is mainly due to economic recession and delay in the issuance of allotment letters. Besides the Noida Authority is not handing over the plots to them. Another reason given by builders is that the Noida Authority has not provided them with facilities like water and roads at the project sites.

In one village, builders have paid Rs 8 crore to farmers for getting possession of the plots.

It may be recalled that during Mulayam Singh Yadav’s tenure in October 2006, the Noida Authority had allotted plots to four leading builders in Sector-119. But they were given possession of plots 17 months later in January 2008. The builders had not only to struggle for the possession of lands with the Noida Authority and the farmers, but also had to shell out Rs 8 crore for the affected farmers.

They allege that the authority had allotted these plots to them without paying compensation to farmers.

Farmers have filed a case against the Noida Authority pertaining to their land. The Authority may have to pay a hefty compensation to farmers.

Interestingly, the Noida Authority had allotted seven plots to builders in Sectors-111 to 118 in January 2007. The builders had received the allotment letters in March 2007. But by then the election dates were announced in the state and all government action was suspended.

A probe was carried out till November-December 2007 and the state government took some time more to take a decision on the issue after which registries of plots were executed and their possessions given to the builders.

But many plots are yet to be acquired and the sites that are clear don’t have proper roads thus, hindering work.

According to the Noida Authority sources, one of the builders has stopped paying installments after depositing a mere 10%. He says that he has not been provided with the needed facilities. Besides, there are some builders who could not go in for the registry because they have not been given allotment letters.

The Greater Noida airport plan may well be shelved on Tuesday, when the Group of Ministers led by finance minister P Chidambaram meets to take a final call on the issue.

According to highly placed sources, the ministry of civil aviation is expected to support scrapping any plan to build an airport at Greater Noida and cite the opinion of the Attorney General (AG).

Earlier, the GoM had referred this politically sensitive proposal to the AG to determine whether an airport at Noida violates the concession agreement between the government and GMR Group, the developer of the Delhi International Airport (DIAL). In his report subsequently, the AG clearly stated that till capacity at the existing DIAL is exhausted, no new airport should be allowed to come up.

DIAL is just about 70 km from the proposed airport site at Zevar and as per existing rules, any airport proposal within 150 km of an existing one needs to be examined for implications on existing infrastructure.

Even the current political scenario indicates that the chances of the Greater Noida airport proposal getting a nod are slim. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, the main supporter of this project, is at loggerheads with the UPA government at the Centre and it is widely believed that the GoM would agree with civil aviation minister Praful Patel’s plan of scrapping the project all together.