The Haryana government has hired a private consultancy — at a cost of Rs 22 lakh — to carry out an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) study of the city. Once the study is over, the consultancy will prepare an Environmental Management Plan that will be integrated with the Masterplan.

Revealing this today, Haryana Urban Development Authority’s (HUDA) chief administrator S.S Dhillon said, “We had invited an ‘expression of interest’ to conduct the study five months back. Senes Consultants have now been chosen to carry out the study in a two-month timeframe. It has been allotted work some 10 days back and may soon set up independent stations in Gurgaon.”

“The consultants would prepare thematic maps by consulting old maps and predict future growth patterns by using techniques like GIS mapping,” added Dhillon.

Queried about the status of the new Masterplan, Dhillon said, “It’s not a simple process. The draft Masterplan takes time to evolve and a variety of factors have to be kept in mind. It is better to take more time now, than to come up with an incomplete Masterplan and make changes later.”

Apollo Tyres Group on Thursday announced its foray into the healthcare sector with a 500-bed hospital in Gurgaon with an investment of Rs2.5bn. Named as Artemis Health Sciences Pvt Ltd, the healthcare arm of Apollo Tyres would be a wholly-owned subsidiary of PTL Enterprises Ltd and will have diverse interests in medical education, research and manufacturing of medical accessories.

The Gurgaon hospital, Artemis Health Institute, would be a multi-superspeciality facility with specialisations in oncology, cardio-thoracic and musculo-skeletal diseases.

“The company would invest Rs2.5bn for the entire project, of which the phase I would be completed in the next 18 months with an investment of around Rs1.45bn”, said Apollo Tyres’ CMD, Onkar S Kanwar.

Shareholders may reject the open offer made by Prakausali Investments to acquire 14.4 per cent stake in Unitech. Prakausali Investments, along with the persons acting in concert, at present holds 42.9 per cent of the equity. The offer price of Rs 895 is at a significant discount to the current market price of Rs 1,582. Unitech derives a large proportion of its revenues from real-estate development and construction. The real-estate projects include residential and commercial buildings. The company has also capitalised on the infrastructure boom in the country. It has received orders from State authorities for construction of roads, highways, flyovers and power transmission lines. This has enabled the company foray into overseas markets such as Libya. This will serve as a reference point for bidding for more such projects in that region.

Unitech enjoys higher operating profit margins than pure infrastructure players . This can be attributed to the higher margins from the real-estate segment. The diversified business model is likely to cushion earnings in the event of a downturn in any one of the segments. Higher revenues can be expected to sustain the margins.

Unitech’s stronghold in the North, especially Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon, is likely to give it an edge. The demand for space in these areas is likely to be driven primarily by the increasing number of business process outsourcing centres mushrooming in the region. Increased government spending on suburban infrastructure is also likely to keep the orders flowing. The World Bank has funded many of the infrastructure projects handled by the company. Thus the uncertainty in terms of recovering debt from the State authorities is relatively less.

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A few minutes past 4 pm, when Sabrina Lall got a call from a friend that all nine accused in the murder of her sister Jessica had been set free, she was not shocked. She just felt helpless.

There was a little hope initially. But then, there was no real expectation from the way the case was proceeding. Things were going from bad to worse, says the 44-year-old, three years elder to Jessica.

Called Shona at home, Jessica was shot in Tamarind Court in the early hours of April 30, 1999. Since then, says Sabrina, life has come to a standstill for the Lall family. While Sabrinas mother Kay died of cancer in 2002, her father Ajit Kumar Lall, 76, suffered a stroke a few months later.

In fact, Sabrina says she had lost hope in 2002 when Manu Sharma, the main accused, was released on bail. Money and muscle-power played an important role. We couldnt do anything, its a terrible feeling. You cant fight against so much money and power. Manu Sharma getting bail, eye-witnesses turning hostile, forensic evidence getting messed up all these indicated that things would not happen the way we wanted. I had stopped going to court after that, says Sabrina, who runs a travel agency in Gurgaon. The verdict, says Sabrina, only proves that the system has to change.

The Haryana government has hired a private consultancy — at a cost of Rs 22 lakh — to carry out an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) study of the city. Once the study is over, the consultancy will prepare an Environmental Management Plan that will be integrated with the Masterplan.

Revealing this today, Haryana Urban Development Authority’s (HUDA) chief administrator S.S Dhillon said, “We had invited an ‘expression of interest’ to conduct the study five months back. Senes Consultants have now been chosen to carry out the study in a two-month timeframe. It has been allotted work some 10 days back and may soon set up independent stations in Gurgaon.”

“The consultants would prepare thematic maps by consulting old maps and predict future growth patterns by using techniques like GIS mapping,” added Dhillon.

Queried about the status of the new Masterplan, Dhillon said, “It’s not a simple process. The draft Masterplan takes time to evolve and a variety of factors have to be kept in mind. It is better to take more time now, than to come up with an incomplete Masterplan and make changes later.”

Asked about the direction of Gurgaon’s future growth, Dhillon said, “We plan to integrate Manesar with Gurgaon in the next Masterplan so that both become one entity.”

Later, while addressing mediapersons today, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda admitted that a non-finalised copy of the under-revision Masterplan had got leaked and was sold in the market.

However, when asked about the status of the proposed Masterplan, Hooda said that “it should be a secret till it comes out”.

One-sided encounters were the order of the day as Delhi blanked PEPSU 7-0 while Jharkhand routed HA Jalandhar 6-0 and Northern Railway registered a facile 4-1 win over West Central Railway in the All India Invitation Prize Money women hockey tourney here today.

In the days first match, Anarita K and Guddi Kumari both struck braces apiece as Jharkhand eves thrashed HA Jalandhar 6-0 to register their second win of the tourney.

Delhi also won their second match on consecutive days defeating PEPSU 7-0 in the second match of the day. Delhi eves were leading by 4-0 by the half time.

Meanwhile, Northern Railway came from behind and showered four goals in the second half to rout West Central railway 4-1.

The Haryana government, has earmarked Rs 776 crores to raise the level of development of Gurgaon to international standards in the next three years and make it the healthcare hub of the country.

The State Government had envisaged a 3-year action plan involving an investment of Rs 776 crore so Gurgaon could be developed on an international level, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda told reporters after laying the foundation of a 500-bed multi-speciality hospital of Artemis Health Institute here today.

He said efforts undertaken by Artemis would help in providing better healthcare not only to the people of Gurgaon but also to neighbouring states.

The setting up of such medical institutes in Haryana would also compliment working of previously established PGIMER institutions, he said.

Haryana had met the standards established by the Centre and the EU due to which, the state government had received a subsidy of Rs 6 crore for bringing about improvement in the healthcare sector.

The first phase of the Rs 250 crore project would be completed at a cost of Rs 145 crore with 9 operation theatres coming up, Artemis Omkar Singh said.

Ninety six malls in operation in India. About 21.6 million square feet to grow to 34 million by end 2006. Three hundred and fifty-eight malls to be ready by 2007. Staggering statistics! But there are many who predict that a large number of these malls (some say over 70%) will not survive.

As a student of market research and consumer behaviour, I have to say that I agree with the naysayers. Being a resident of Gurgaon (near Delhi), I have seen at close quarters how many of the malls are ill-conceived and poorly planned.

Many shop owners within these malls complain about the low volume of active shoppers, which is resulting in some of them having to close shop or sell at hefty discounts. What has gone wrong and what should the mall owners and developers do to protect their investments?

Ensure that the tenant mix is right. This implies having at least one or two large stores, which ensure a regular footfall of active shoppers. Ideally, this means having at least one well-stocked grocery store, which shoppers need to visit on a weekly basis. The City Centre Mall in the heart of Dubai is a good example. This mall has a Carrefour Hyper- market with about 100 checkout counters. Reasonably priced, this store also offers excellent value on a few items each week. By offering attractive prices on these loss leaders, Carrefour ensures a regular inflow of shoppers. They stock up on their weekly groceries and wander around the mall after they are done, picking up the odd gift or article of clothing. The large volume of traffic into Carrefour ensures that the small percentage that shops elsewhere is adequate to keep the surrounding smaller stores happy!