For a city that is teeming with vehicles,Punjab Governor and UT Administrator Shivraj V Patil has a solution to offer: park vehicles inside your houses to facilitate others to drive. Addressing city residents at the Parade Ground in Sector 17 on the occasion of Independence Day,Patil stated that traffic would not be disrupted if the vehicles were not parked on roadside. Patil stated that traffic problem would be sorted out if people who live in large houses parked vehicles in their compound or garage of the house. An attempt is being made to formulate a policy to take up concerted efforts to construct a parking place underground for accommodating more vehicles, said Patil. With not much progress made in most of the projects announced earlier,the same found a mention in Patils speech this year as well. The proposal for Metro Rail for improving the public transport system in the city has been doing the rounds for several years. Patil said that the Central government had expressed its willingness to accept the Metro Rail project. The administration has decided to incorporate a new corporation for this which will be consisted of officials from the Central government,Punjab,Haryana and Chandigarh. The much-talked about initiative to make Chandigarh A city of Solar Energy was also emphasised with a substantial part of the administrators speech being about this. As per the target,the Chandigarh Administration has decided to use solar energy in all the government departments of the UT,government schools,colleges,government dispensaries,police departments and prisons,to avoid shortage of electricity. Patil said,Solar energy can be easily utilised in the house and produced by installing panels on rooftops of the houses. It can also be used in farming. In cities,it is being used as streetlights. The Central government has designated Chandigarh as A City of Solar Energy. Today it is very expensive to use solar energy. But it is going to be cheap in the coming times as is the case with cell phones. In fact,solar energy has been touted as the solution for several problems,especially tiding over shortage of power. The construction of dwelling units for rehabilitation of slum dwellers found a mention in Patils speech. This is another project that is ongoing with several thousand one-room tenements having been allotted and an equal number yet to be constructed. Patil said,A decision was taken to construct 25,000 units for these people. Of these,12,000 dwellings have been constructed and 4,000 have been allotted. The remaining 8,000 would be allotted to them by the Prime Minister in September this year. After that,there is a proposal to construct 13,000-14,000 more such dwelling units for these people. The Central government has informed the UT Administration to construct such dwelling units with two rooms instead of one. He stated that the Chandigarh police is one of the best police forces in the country. The entire police department would be modernised. The police personnel would also be taught how to establish a good rapport with the public by adopting a new view towards people. 'After all,Chandigarhites belong to Punjab,Haryana as well Chandigarh is heading towards shortage of water with disputes between Punjab and Haryana. Patil said,It is a matter of great pleasure for us that both these governments will help Chandigarh Administration in this matter. We think so. After all Chandigarhites belong to Punjab and Haryana as well. Their population is more as compared to others. Therefore,there is nothing wrong in asking for their help in this matter. * Patil stated that help will be taken from the governments of Punjab and Haryana for expansion of PGI and Panjab University. * The translation of Patil's speech in English had its share of bloopers. In the proposal for solving problem of parking,it is stated that people owing enough land can construct the garage in their house or on the roof top to park their vehicles. * The Administrator assured that the long-pending proposal for Beant Singh memorial will be completed. * Patil also talked about the stars from the region who were dominating Bollywood.
