City beat 8212; Pune

Passport office to be upgraded
The Pune passport office became functional from June 1. The office will cover Pune, Ahmednagar, Kolhapur, Satara, Sangli and Solapur. It is slated to be one of the most modern offices in the country after it is computerised and connected on-line with other centres, regional passport officer V N Hade, Mumbai told mediapersons here on Friday.

The application forms along with the required documents and the prescribed fee in the form of demand draft in favour of Passport Officer8217;, payable at Mumbai, will now be accepted in Pune itself. The applications for fresh passports as well as miscellaneous services such as renewal, additional booklet, change of address, police clearance certificate, deletion of children8217;s name, additional endorsement and any other related services are also accepted at the Pune office, he said. Pune accounts for about ten per cent of total passports issued by the Mumbai regional office, which has now now crossed over three lakh. Around 340,856 passports were issued in Maharashtra during 1998-99. With the opening of passport collection centres at Aurangabad which collects application forms from seven districts of Marathwada region, the passport services have become operational in the entire state with the exception of Amravati division, Hade said.

Water closure
Water supply will remain closed to Sahakarnagar I and II, Laxminagar, Parvati Gaon, Shivdarshan, Parvati Darshan, Satara Road, Tawre Colony, Sant Tukaramnagar and Kiran Society among other areas on Saturday evening owing to immediate repair work at the main water pipeline of the high level rise HLR zone at Parvati water works.

An official statement stated on Friday that there was a major leak in the main water pipeline and repair work would be undertaken immediately on Saturday morning. Supply will resume late on Sunday morning and at low pressure.

Indl licence fees
The Pimpri-Chinchwad wing of Mahratta Chamber of Commerce Industries and Agriculture MCCIA and the Pimpri-Chinchwad Small Industries Development Committee has asked the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation PCMC not to implement a hike in the industrial licence fees and protested against the hike in penal interest.