THE TIMES OF INDIA, AHMEDABADWEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 20154 TIMES CITY

Ahmedabad: Just a dayahead of Gujarat high courtscheduled to hear a PIL on “il-legal” commercial buildingssprouting in residential areasof the Walled City, the Ahme-dabad Municipal Corporation(AMC) hastily sealed 164 es-tablishments including jewel-lery shops in prime location ofManek chowk.

This knee-jerk reaction ofthe AMC has only exposedhow the civic body has beenlooking the other way for dec-ades allowing commercialbuildings to come up in theWalled City. This will alsoprove to be a big blot on Unescodossier that the AMC is pre-paring currently vying for aworld heritage city status.

By the time the AMC sub-mitted its Unesco dossier toArcahelogical Survey of India(ASI) early this year, 694 oldpol houses had been pulleddown on the pretext of re-pairs. The AMC said that 215buildings in 2012, 419 in 2013,and nearly 60 by April 2014 hadbeen converted from residen-tial to commercial units.

“Ideally, the municipalcommissioner has to approvethe change of use of a building— from residential to commer-cial,” says a senior AMC offi-cial.

Now small shopping com-plexes have supplanted manyof the heritage properties.

AMC sealscommercialbuildings inWalled City

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Ahmedabad: The SupremeCourt (SC)-appointed SpecialInvestigation Team (SIT) onblack money will now moni-tor the probe into Rs 2,600crore cricket betting racketthat was unearthed by the Ah-medabad zonal unit of En-forcement Directorate (ED) atVadodara in March this year.The SIT is already monitor-ing the Rs 5,395 crore Surathawala racket involving Af-roz Fatta, Madan Jain andMumbai-based bullion trad-ers which was also busted byED, Ahmedabad, last year.

However, the probe teamremained tightlipped onwhich specific cases it willmonitor. Justice M B Shah,who heads the SIT, confirmedthat the probe team will bemonitoring the cricket be-tting racket currently beinginvestigated by the ED. “Butwhich cases are to be moni-tored will be decided later,”said Justice Shah.

Last week, the ED had fil-ed a charge-sheet against sev-en bookies in connection withthe multi-crore cricket be-tting racket busted during theIPL and the World Cup tour-naments. The seven bookiesare charged with violatingthe law against money laun-dering.

The chargesheet said thatthe ED had traced transac-tions up to Rs 2,500 crore bybookies Girish alias Tommy

Patel and Kiran Mala in thepast four months. This moneywas transacted exclusivelythrough the UK-based bettingwebsite, betfair.com.

The ED report also allegedthat payment and settlementof dues worth crores of ru-pees were done through ha-wala channel in foreign coun-tries like the UK, Australiaand the US.

The ED had filed a 40-pagereport substantiated withnearly 2,000 pages of docu-ments, before special PMLAcourt. The report indicted Pa-tel, Mala, Chirag Parikh,Dharmin Chauhan from Guj-arat; and Mukesh Sharma,Ritesh and Ankush Bansalfrom Delhi. Sharma used tohave a master-key to lay betsthrough the website.

Till now, the ED has madeseven arrests in the case. Fourbookies, including Rajas-than-based Rahul Gangwal,Vineet Gangwal, formerMumbai councillor Anil Jai-singhani and UAE-basedSukhwinder Sodhi are stillabsconding.

Black money SIT to monitor cricket

betting investigationTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Ahmedabad: Corporate charity isnot new to India. But now that thisvoluntary act has been made manda-tory by the new Companies Act 2013,Indian corporates are expected tospend over Rs 25,000 crore this year oncorporate social responsibility(CSR).

According to a working paper bythe Indian Institute of Management,Ahmedabad (IIM-A), corporate tax —in line with the Union budget of 2015-16 — will amount to Rs 470,628 crorefor the financial year 2015-16.

“Perhaps time is ripe to comparethe exact CSR expenditures as com-panies would complete filing their re-turns for the financial year 2014-15 inthe near future,” the paper says. Thepaper, by Prof Satish Deodhar, is ti-tled ‘India’s Mandatory CSR, Processof Compliance and Channels ofSpending’.

Companies that are covered un-der the new Act must form CSR com-mittees from among the board mem-bers; formulate CSR policies; andannounce, execute, and monitor theirCSR activities. If companies fail to doso, penalties will result. The study re-veals that it was felt that industrymay view the imposition of the provi-sion as coercive, impinging on profit-ability and hence on stock prices.“However, event analysis conductedon big and small food companiesshows that the imposition of the CSR

provisions has had no negative im-pact on stock prices,” the study says.

Highlighting another apprehen-sion about the Act, the study pointsout research conducted by Prof Deod-har’s IIM-A colleagues Naman Desaiand Viswanath Pingali that if firmswere spending more than 2% of netprofits during the pre-Act period,they may now anchor their spendingon the legal requirements. And thusbecome content with spending only2% of net profit in the post-Act period.

According to the Indian Instituteof Corporate Affairs, around 16,352companies fall within the purview ofSection 135 of the Companies Act. Ac-cording to sources, before the newCompanies Act was implemented,the total spend by Indian companieswas less than Rs 10,000 crore.

Effective 1 April 2014, India's new-

ly amended Companies Act made itmandatory for certain companies,private limited or public limited, list-ed or unlisted, to spend a certain mini-mum amount on corporate social re-sponsibility activities. The Actapplies to companies which have hadanet profit of Rs 5 crore or more or networth of Rs 500 crore or more or aturnover of Rs 5,000 crore or more inany financial year. Such companiesmust spend a minimum of 2% of theaverage net profit made during thethree immediately preceding finan-cial years. The Act applies to a holdingcompany, its subsidiary, and even aforeign company with a branch orproject office in India. Companies likeTata Group, Infosys, Ambuja Cement,Persistent Systems, are among thecompanies that are known to be bestin fulfilling CSR.

Companies in India to spendover `̀25,000cr on CSR: Study

Newly amended Companies Act makes it mandatory for companies to spend a certain minimum amount on corporate social responsibility activities

Chitra.Unnithan@timesgroup.com

Ahmedabad: Grief has beenexpressed over the demise of

former superiorgeneral of theMissionaries ofCharity, Nirma-la Joshi.

“In the pass-ing away of Sis-

ter Nirmala, the world has lost agreat soul who truly embodiedall that one seeks to be as an ide-al human: contemplation, com-passion and commitment. Thelegacy she leaves is worthy ofemulation,” said Father CedricPrakash SJ, director of PRASH-ANT, a city-based Centre for Hu-man Rights, Justice and Peace.

Sister Nirmala, who suc-ceeded Mother Teresa as the su-

perior general of the Missionar-ies of Charity in March 1997,passed away in the early hoursof Tuesday in Kolkata. She con-tinued at the helm of the con-gregation till March 2009 whenshe declined to accept a third-term citing health issues.

Sister Nirmala was born in1934 in Ranchi to Hindu par-ents, who were originally fromNepal.

Mother Teresa’ssuccessor

passes away,mourned in city

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BIG LOSS

Ahmedabad: Help has finally reac-hed Jalpa Kachhia, the winner of 22yoga medals, who has been living alife of penury.

The young expert from Anand’ssmall town of Petlad has won sixgold, 11 silver, and five bronze med-als at international, national, andstate-level Yoga championships. ButJalpa’s family lives in a dilapidated

house. In fact, thebuilding near Am-ba Mata temple inwhich she lives isso poorly equippedthat Jalpa has tovisit her neigh-bour's house to an-swer nature’s call.

After readingher story in TOI,Anand MP Dilip

Mani Patel met the Yoga champion,who has displayed her skills in Chi-na and Europe. Patel not only gifted

her a two-storied house in Karam-sad but also promised to bear the ex-penses of her sister’s education.

“At a time when crores of rupeeswere spent to celebrate the first In-ternational Yoga Day, people like uswho know this ancient scienceshould get some financial support sothat we can grow,” said Jalpa.

When she was a child, Jalpa’s fa-ther Tarun separated from her

mother Mona, leaving his twodaughters and their mother to fendfor themselves.

Patel said: “After the reading thenews in TOI, chief minister Anan-diben Patel asked me to help Jalpa. Ihave visited her house and observedthat her family needs help.” Jalpasaid, “I want the state government torecognize my talent and give me anaward which I truly deserve.”

Yoga champ’s penury, toilet-lesshome moves MP to gift house

IMPACT

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Jalpa Kachhia (right) with sister at her old house

Gandhinagar: The Gujaratgovernment has initiated stepsto take action against industri-al units which had taken thebenefit of some governmentschemes but were not followingthe rule about a minimum of85% local employment.

Vijay Rupani, state labourand employment departmentminister, had called a meetingwith representatives of 44large industries located in Sau-rashtra, Kutch and North Guja-rat.

These had reportedly failedto recruit 85% of their employ-ees from the local population asrequired by rules. Interesting-ly, these 44 defaulting industri-es include companies like Tataand Adani Group.

Rupani said that according

to the state government’s poli-cy, industrial units which takebenefits under one or other gov-ernment scheme have to follow85% local hiring norm.

“But many industrial unitshave not followed this rule.Hence, we called a meeting ofthe officials concerned andrepresentatives of 44 major in-dustries from Saurashtra,Kutch and North Gujarat andasked them to comply beforethe end of December,’’ said Ru-pani.

Those who had lived in Guja-

rat for the past 15 years were al-so included among the localpeople. “This has also been tak-en into consideration in assess-ing the industries,” the minis-ter said.

Rupani further said thatsome companies’ representa-tives had claimed that for sometechnical posts, they had notbeen able to find adequatelyqualified local people.

The minister said that ma-jor companies like Tata, Adanihad also been asked to meet the85% local employment criteria.

The ratio, on an average, be-tween outsiders and local peo-ple employed by industries is 60to 70%. The minister said gov-ernment had asked even cen-tral government companieslike ONGC, Food Corporationof India (FCI), SAIL and othersto follow 85% norm.

44 firms ignored job quota ruleTIMES NEWS NETWORK

A BJP leader Mohan Bharwad haswithdrawn his anticipatory bail ap-plication from Gujarat high court af-ter Justice Z K Saiyed seemed reluc-tant to provide protection frompossible arrest in connection with anFIR registered against him for al-

week on bail plea filed by accusedcop in the 2003 Sadiq Jamal Mehtarencounter case, Tarun Barot. He hasbeen in jail since December 21, 2012.

Extra coach to be added To clear extra rush, Railways has de-cided to add an extra sleeper coachin Train No 12547/12548 Ahmedabad-Agra Superfast Express from June 30.

leged land grabbing case in Bopal.Complainant Bhikhaji Thakor has al-leged that his land was usurped onfalse power-of-attorney.

Court defers verdict onbail plea in Sadiq caseA special CBI court has once againdeferred its verdict till later this

CITY DIGEST

BJP leaderwithdraws plea

Cept varsity alumnus lights up his villageFor years, Lala Dehraji Tha-

kor had spent all his eve-nings in the dark at his thatched house in Sardhav vil-lage of Gandhinagar. But today, Thakor is lighting up Sardhav, where several slum houses had never seen light after sunset, until two years ago. Thakor became an agent of change after being educated about the potential of renewable energy by Cept University alumnus Shrupath Patel, a native of Sardhav. When Thakor in-stalled two solar panels at his house, he had no clue that his

idea would one day illuminate so many lives. Inspired by Thakor, 10 more families in the village have embraced sun-powered panels. Even Revaabaai Hospital in the area has suc-cessfully installed a new variant of portable solar streetlights. Patel, who now works in the Gujarat government’s climate change depart-ment, has conducted a study on his village, which revealed that it has the potential to set up 3.30MW solar power plant and generate 49 lakh units of clean electricity every year. The village can earn an income of around Rs 2 crore per year that can be used for infrastructure.

MICA’s ‘olive branch’ to prof

More than two weeks after Vaneet Chhibber’s exit from Mica, the admin-

istration has reportedly extended an olive branch to the senior professor and talks are on to have him onboard again. Prof Chhibber had joined Mica four years ago and had been part of the place-ment cell since then. Our little birdie says Chhibber has good contacts in industry and had been invit-ing big firms to the campus for place-ments. After he joined Mica, the in-stitute started regis-tering a 100% place-ment, which hap-pened this year too for the 20th batch of its flagship PGDM-communications programme. Around 85 companies scouted for talent on the campus as 157 excited students vied for good openings. After appointing Atish Chat-topadhyay as the dean, Mica director Nagesh Rao had asked Chhibber to report to the new dean. Chattopadhyay is junior to Chhibber in age and work experience.

Low-key campus-warming

IIT-Gn is set to move into one of the swankiest campuses of the country, which has an array

of luxury amenities. But, the institute’s much awaited ceremony on July 1 will be a low-key af-fair. “Instead of marketing it ourselves, we want the people to see what has come up,” IIT-Gn direc-tor Sudhir Jain said. IIT-Gn has built a 400-acre permanent campus on the banks of the Sabar-mati River at Palaj village in Gandhinagar.

ASCENDING ORDER: As part of its summer school programme, Cept University recently conducted a course in basic mountaineering in Darjeeling and Sikkim

These companies had reportedly failed to recruit85% of their employeesfrom the local populationas required by rules

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Ahmedabad: On August 21, top Isro scientists will be in the city to celebrate the Ruby anniversary (40 years) of di-rect-to-home (DTH) television broad-casting in the country.

Pij, a non-descript village in Kheda was the location of Kheda Communica-tions Project (KCP), a brainchild of Dr Vikram Sarabhai. According to Isro chairman AS Kiran Kumar, it was one of the world’s largest social experi-ments of its time. The site in the village where the first 1 kilowatt steel frame TV tower stood is now a vegetable gar-den where brinjals and spinach are grown by SAC-SEWA resource center.

The 1 kilowatt Pij TV tower was moved to Chennai when Doordarshan set up its full-fledged establishment at Ahmedabad in 1985. The shifting of the Pij tower to Chennai was resisted by villagers who had launched a ‘Pij TV Kendra Bachao’ movement.

The KCP was started with a low-powered transmitter gifted by UNDP. A local production studio and satellite earth station was set up at Space Ap-plications Center (SAC) in Ahmedbad.

The KCP relied on NASA’s ATS-6 satel-lite for transmission. A total of 651 tel-evisions sets were distributed in 400

villages within a 35-km radius. The aim of the experiment was to explain to vil-lagers the nature of development pro-grammes through this powerful audio-visual medium. The KCP was also In-dia’s first local rural television project — a Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) made possible by Indo-US collaboration.

Later, the experiment was extended to cover some other states. This involved establishing television relay stations in

six states to telecast to hundreds of vil-lages. Intelsat satellites were employed for a year (1975-76) for this purpose.

“The DTH boom that we see today was envisioned by Vikram Sarabhai 40 years ago for education and rural are-as,” said Kumar. SAC director Tapan Misra said the project was unique as it immediately connected with the audi-ence. “Pij became ‘our’ station as it had local artists, local issues and local solu-tions,” said Misra.

Pij sowed Sat TV’s beej 40 yrs agoToday, Site Of Transmission Tower At The Village Is Used To Grow Veggies

1945 | Vikram Sarabhai opens a small research lab for studying cosmic rays in the outhouse of Retreat Bungalow, Shahibaugh

1947 | Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) shifts to MG Science college

1947-48 | Sarabhai invites Dr Ramanathan to be the first director of PRL after his retirement

1950 | First balloon experiments conducted to study upper atmosphere

1952 | C V Raman lays foundation of new PRL campus

1962 | Seeds of Indian space programme sown after formation of the National Committee for Space Research (NCSR)

1963-64 | Asia’s second experimental satellite communications earth station set up in Ahmedabad

1968 | French Centuar rocket fired with Indian made payload from Thumba

1969 | Sarabhai proposes Indian equipment for tests on moon surface. Equipment is meant to ride piggyback on Nasa’s Apollo mission

➤ Sarabhai and his team from

Bhabha Atomic Research Center make the first real time digital computer called ‘Versatile Digital Computer’ for defence applications

1971 | December 29 Sarabhai reveals to his colleagues for the first time his plans to put India’s first satellite into earth’s orbit with the help of an indigenously built rocket at Thumba

Dec 30 | Sarabhai passes away

(L) Villagers launch ‘Pij TV Kendra Bachao’ movement in 1980s. (R) The vegetable garden at Pij site today

POPULAR PIJ SHOWS➤ Mari Mahenat, Mari Kamani

➤ Hu Ane Mari Bhuri

➤ Kaka Chale Vanka

➤ Chatter Mota

➤ Nari Tu Narayani

SPACE PIONEER

1963 | Sarabhai seeks help from the United Nations and Nasa for setting up Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station near Trivandrum. The first sounding rocket gets assembled in a church