Santa Cruz-Chembur Link Rd is complete, will open today

 The Santa Cruz-Chembur Link Road (SCLR), work on which started about a decade ago, has been declared complete. The 6.5km road, which provides quick east-west connectivity, will be opened to traffic at 8am on Friday. It will reduce travel time between the Western and Eastern Express Highways to merely 15-20 minutes from 60 minutes. 

    The SCLR will be commissioned without fanfare or official ceremonies as the code of conduct for the Lok Sabha elections is in force. 
    The SCLR comprises a 560m Kurla-Kalina flyover (opened in August 2012) over LBS Marg, and a doubledecker flyover (the country's first and of a combined length of 1.8km) above the Harbour and Main line tracks in New Tilak Nagar. Motorists can access the Kurla-Kalina flyover from Kurla (West) near Buddha Colony, Dairy Road in Nehru Nagar, Tilak Nagar, Eastern Express Highway and Lokmanya Tilak Terminus. Of the double-decker flyover, the top deck connects Kurla (West) and Tilak Nagar, and the bottom deck LTT and Nehru Nagar. 
    With the SCLR, motorists heading for the EEH from the WEH will no longer have to take a detour via Sion-Dharavi Road or LBS Road via BKC and Kalina. 
    The SCLR missed 12 deadlines, the last on March 31, since construction began in 2006 (the project was planned in 2002). The delays were due to reasons like not getting permission from the railways to build the doubledecker flyover, and the rehabilitation of more than 3,500 families in Gazi Nagar, Buddha Colony, Sable Nagar, Rahul Nagar and Indira Colony, and of commercial units in Kurla and Chembur. The delays resulted in the cost of the project to escalate from Rs 115 crore to Rs 450 crore. 
    An MMRDA official said, "The SCLR was part of the World Bank-funded Mumbai Urban Transport-I project aimed at improving rail and road infrastructure in Mumbai. Mumbai has always had an excellent rail transport network, which offers linear connectivity between the suburbs and the island city. But east-west connectivity has always been poor."

For first time, an opinion poll gives NDA a clear majority Big Wins In UP, Maha, Bihar, MP Predicted

New Delhi: For the first time in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, a poll on Monday predicted a clear majority for any pre-poll alliance, with NDTV projecting that the NDA would get 275 seats in the 543-member House. This is 16 seats more than the poll had predicted last month.      The BJP on its own would win 226 seats, the highest tally ever for the party and the best by any party since 1991, the poll done by Hansa Research estimated. The UPA would win just 111 seats, with the Congress sinking to its lowest tally ever of 92 seats, it said.      The NDA's projected victory is based on impressive gains compared to 2009 in Uttar Pradesh (a gain of 41 seats), Maharashtra (17), Rajasthan (17), Bihar (12), Andhra Pradesh (12) and Madhya Pradesh (10). In just these six states, it stands to gain 109 seats. In most other states too, the Narendra Modi-led alliance is projected to gain, though by more modest amounts.      The only major states in which the NDA could do worse than five years ago are Karnataka (a loss of seven seats), Chhattisgarh (two) and West Bengal (one), according to the NDTV poll.      In contrast, the UPA is predicted to lose seats viz-a-viz 2009 in almost every major state, with Andhra Pradesh being the worst case, where the Congress tally could drop from 33 five years ago to just six this time.      Barring Karnataka and Chhattisgarh, the only states where the UPA stands to gain are Assam (a gain of two seats) and Bihar, where the gain of six is really only because the RJD is now part of the alliance unlike in 2009.  'Soren wanted 50L for CIL CMD post'      Former coal ministers Shibu Soren and Dasari Narayan Rao "pestered" a top Coal India Ltd official for payments and demanded Rs 50 lakh from him in return for being appointed as CIL's CMD, former coal secretary P C Parakh has written in his book "Crusader Or Conspirator? Coalgate And Other Truths". P 7 Vinod Rai defers memoirs till June      The Congress, which is reeling under disclosures by the PM's former media advisor Sanjaya Baru and ex-coal secretary P C Parakh, can breathe a sigh of relief with former CAG Vinod Rai deciding to defer his memoirs till the polls, sparing the party of what could have been a triple whammy. P 7 Poll: TMC third largest with 30 seats T he largest parties after the BJP and Congress would bethe TMC with 30 seats, the AIADMK with 22, SP with 14 and BJD with 13. The DMK, with its allies is likely to win 14 seats and the Left 22. AAP is projected to win just one seat in Delhi and  none elsewhere, at least in the states for which details were available, which included all those with seven seats or more.      None of these parties, however, will be of much significance if the poll's predictions come true, since the NDA will not need any post-poll allies to form government.

Sachin, Salman, Sourav bag soccer league teams

New Delhi: Indian football got a shot of glamour and star power when names of franchisees for the eight-team inaugural Indian Super League (ISL) were announced on Sunday. The IPLstyle league will be held in September-November. 

    While Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly bagged the Kochi and Kolkata teams, respectively, actors Ranbir Kapoor, Salman Khan and John Abraham bought Mumbai, Pune and Guwahati, respectively. The other three cities to make the cut were Delhi, Bangalore and Goa. 
    The total spending on the eight teams was around Rs 120 crore with Kolkata fetching the top price of around Rs 18 crore. While the All India Football Federation called the ISF “an exciting phase”, event promoters IMG-Reliance expressed confidence it would lead to a revolution in Indian football. P20 
TEAMS & OWNERS 
Mumbai: Ranbir Kapoor & banker Bimal Parekh Kochi: Sachin Tendulkar & PVP Ventures Pune: Salman Khan & Wadhawan Group Kolkata: Atletico Madrid, Sourav Ganguly, H Neotia, Sanjiv Goenka & Utsav Parekh 
Bangalore: SUN Group Delhi: DEN Network Goa: Videcon Group, Dattarao Salgaocar & Dempo Guwahati: John Abraham & I-League side Shillong Lajong

Economy to grow at 5.4% in FY15: IMF Sees Recovery On Back Of Global Cues

New Delhi: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected India’s economy to grow by 5.4% in 2014-15 and 6.4% in 2015-16 on the back of strengthening global growth, improving export competitiveness and implementation of recently approved investment projects. 

    In its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO), the IMF said overall growth is expected to firm up on policies supporting investment and a confidence boost from recent policy actions, but will remain below trend. IMF projections are based on market prices whereas estimation by the country’s statistics office is on the basis of 2004-05 prices. 
    But the latest forecast from the IMF should bring some cheer to the policymakers battling to restore faltering growth in Asia’s third-largest economy. Growth has slowed sharply and has become a point of debate in the ongoing national polls. It said consumer price inflation is expected to remain an important challenge but should continue to move onto a downward trajectory. Retail inflation has moderated in recent months on the back of slowing food inflation but has remained above the Reserve Bank of India’s comfort level. 
    IMF said the global recovery is becoming broader, but the changing external environment poses new challenges to emerging market and developing economies. The multilateral agency forecasts global growth to average 3.6% in 2014 — up from 3% in 2013 — and to rise to 3.9% in 2015. 
    “The recovery which was starting to take hold in October is becoming not only stronger, but also broader,” said IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard. “Although we are far short of a full recovery, the normalization of monetary policy — both conventional and unconventional — is now on the agenda.” Blanchard cautioned, however, that while acute risks have decreased, risks have not disappeared. 
‘Re, stocks to rally if Modi forms govt’ Mumbai: Japanese brokerage Nomura has said a Narendra Modi-led government will help the rupee jump to 58 against the dollar and trigger up to a 10% rally in the stock market. The report titled ‘India’s defining moment’ is authored by Nomura India chief economist Sonal Varma and her team and the brokerage’s global political analysts Alastair Newton and Craig Chan. “We see the forthcoming elections as a make-or- break event for the medium-term prospects,” the report says. The Modi-effect can prop the rupee to 58 to the dollar and GDP to 6% in 2015, says the report, adding that it will have only a little impact on growth this year as it sees the economic expansion to be just 5%. AGENCIES