Journos go sight-seeing in Pink City – Jaipur

VISIT ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTRE, DOORDARSHAN KENDRA, PRESS CLUB OF JAIPUR APART FROM POPULAR TOURIST SITES
ANAND OBEROI
JAIPUR, RAJASTHAN, 16 Mar: The second day at the Pink City which is also the third day of the ten-day exposure tour for nine journalists from Sikkim to Rajasthan  started with a leisurely sightseeing tour across the city which included Tripola Towers, the famous Hawa Mahal situated in the heart of the city, the speciality of this palace is that it has a total of 365 windows which has three small air outlets in each window which makes natural air conditioning possible in the place in an amazing feat of historic engineering by the Rajputs.
The journalists then proceeded to the world famous Amer Fort which is also being restored and renovated under JNURM at an estimated Rs 4.31 crore out of which works upto Rs 3 crore has already been completed. Surrounded amidst tourists and historians from all over the globe, the journalists were taken to areas inside the Fort which have been prohibited for the general public because of the fragility of the narrow naturally air-conditioned marble tunnels. This amazing feat of architecture and the enormity of the work that was done in a period when only elephants, horses and camels could carry such heavy loads was a sight to see.
The beauty and integrity of the carvings and sculpturing done along the walls, the way in which the ancient Rajput architects developed the columns that supported the high ceilings and their ingenious ways to make life in a time and area where only the sun and heat is supreme was an amazing and fascinating sight to see.
After spending time watching snake charmers and negotiating our way back to the vehicle stand while entrepreneurs enticed us to purchase traditional artefacts and memorabilia from the land of the Maharajas from small stalls, the journalists were taken to another amazing feat of architectural history, the Jaal Mahal, a small but beautiful palace situated in the middle of a lake while on the way back to the Pink City.
Earlier, during the day the journalists also visited the Environmental Research and Development centre for waste water treatment plant at Delawas in South Jaipur which is the largest such plant in the entire state of Rajasthan.
The journalists representing different news houses from Sikkim interacted with the management authorities of the raw sewerage treatment plant which is run by a Chennai-based company VA Wabag Ltd in association with Jaipur Municipal Corporation funded by JNURM which is spread in an area of 96 bigha.
There are two plants in the area that treat approximately 62.5 million liters of waste water each day channelled only from South Jaipur and is amazingly also the first power generating plant generating 8576 kilo watts of electricity per day from treating sewerage. Coming in second is the Jaisinghipura Khor plant which caters to North Jaipur and has a capacity of 50 million liters of water per day.
Plant Manager, Pravin Manjeraker said that the aim behind running the plant was to ensure health, safety and environmental policy of the state government and the centrally sponsored JNURM.
The journalists then visited the Doordarshan Kendra, Jaipur which is one of the three in Rajasthan. The journos were taken around the news rooms, the studios and shown how a TV channel actually functions and how one gets to see what we see on television every second of every day.
The day ended with a visit to the impressive Press Club of Jaipur considered one of the three best Press Clubs in the country that has a membership of 5000 non accredited and 2000 accredited journalists after a drive along Rajpath, the Rajasthan Secretariat, the High Court, the Sawaiman Singh stadium and the central park which also has the world’s largest Indian flag hoisted in its premises.