Beginning next year,nine more districts The state will soon have 27 districts. To ease administration and improve governance,especially in Naxal-affected areas,Chief Minister Raman Singh recently announced the creation of nine more districts in the state Balrampur,Surajpur,Sukma,Kondagaon,Balaud,Gariaband,Bemetara,Balauda Bazar and Mungeli. The new districts will come into effect from January 1,2012. The opposition Congress has slammed the move as politically motivated,saying most of the districts have been carved out of its strongholds. The government also faces a difficult task creating administrative machinery for the new districts within a short time. Balrampur,a police district at the moment,has only one senior officer,an SP. With no building or structure that can house a collectorate and other offices,it remains to be seen how these new districts will begin operating. High Court puts housing on hold After the Allahabad High Court struck down construction in Greater Noida,terming it illegal,the Chhattisgarh High Court put on hold a controversial housing scheme,Kamal Vihar Yojana,of the Raipur Development Authority (RDA). The court noted that the government took possession of the land without legally acquiring it. Farmers also raised the issue of inadequate compensation. There were allegations that the scheme did not follow town planning norms. The Rs 830-crore township is to come up over 1,600 acres. The scheme was originally conceived as a small township of 100 acres,but RDA officers expanded it. Many private builders,including Balaji Real Estate and Chinmaya Builders,have moved the court against the project. Acclaimed novelist stays forgotten Raipur-based Hindi writer Vinod Kumar Shukla entered his 75th year this August. While events were organised in New Delhi to mark the occasion,his home state did not find time to honour the author who won Sahitya Akademi award for his novel,Deewar mein ek khidki rehti thi. Late filmmaker Mani Kaul made an acclaimed feature film on his first novel,Naukar ki kameez. Translated into English and French,this work ranks among the top Hindi novels of the last century.
