Only AXIS bank in bids for MHADA lottery tender

Finding a bank which gives satisfactory rate of interest on deposits has become a daunting task for the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA), as only Axis Bank has applied during the third tenders invited by MHADA for collecting application forms from home seekers for houses under various schemes.

"Axis is the only bank that has applied and there is a strong likelihood that they would be awarded the contract of collecting application forms as we don't have any options" said an official from MHADA.

MHADA appoints a bank wherein the people can fill up and submit their application forms for the lottery. While MHADA also deposits the money submitted by the applicants in these banks and gets interest on the same, MHADA would also pay Rs 20 per form submitted to the banks. Axis bank is ready to pay an interest of around 5 per cent on the collection amount deposited in the collection centres, operated out of the branches.

" The rate of interest offered by them is very low and hence we are trying to find out some other banks that can give a higher rate of interest" said an official.

MHADA has also started visiting the branches of the banks to check the space and type of infrastructure that would be required to handle the work. The officials have also provided multiple reasons for rejecting Axis Bank.

Vice President of MHADA Satish Gavai had said Axis Bank didn't had enough branches while Chief Officer of Mumbai board Annasaheb Misal said Axis Bank is fulfilling the requirements as it has more than mandatory 50 branches in and around Mumbai.

Holi festivities kick off in Jaitapur amid tension

Tension looms large on one of the two most important Konkan festivals - Holi. The 10-day Holi celebrations have already kicked off. Considering the atmosphere vilified by clashes between the police and the local villagers from projectaffected villages near Jaitapur, the government has called in additional forces to meet all contingencies.

At a hush high- level meeting at minister Narayan Rane's Kankavli residence on Thursday morning, the minister was briefed by the local collector Madhukar Gaikwad, Special IG Konkan range Parambir Singh, Ratnagiri SP Pradip Raskar, Sindhudurg SP Sunil Kolhe and others. " Holi is the most popular festival of Konkan apart from Ganeshotsav. Approximately 2 lakh people come back to their villages for celebrations. The government therefore is strategizing its plan of action," said a local activist.

Special IG of the Konkan Range, Parambir Singh informed, " One SRP company each has been called in for each of the 4 districts of Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Raigad and Thane (Rural). About 300 to 500 home guards would also be deputed per district apart from other forces." Speaking about the meeting at Rane's residence, Singh said, " We just apprised him of the situation. It is under control. I don't think the festival bandobast has any connection to the Jaitapur issue." Said Ratnagiri SP Pradip Raskar, " In some villages there are disputes between locally opposite parties on who will do the offerings to the deity. During such times the local tehsildar issues notices under section 144 and prohibits puja for both warring parties.

This time too we are planing to issue notices in 10 to 15 villages as a preventive measure under section 107 and 149." Holi celebrations have kick- started the festival season in Konkan. The Holi festival on 19th and subsequent Shiv jayanti celebrations on March 22, apart from the Angarkarki Chaturthi that falls on March 21, are all celebrated with great fervour. " Only this time the villagers are in no mood to celebrate due to constant arrests and atrocities by the local administration," the activist added.

Housing secretary tips off MHADA about bogus housing scheme

The secretary of the housing department has written a letter to the vigilance department of Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) to take legal action against an NGO. The NGO, Arzoo Swabhimaani Nagarik Samiti, has been collecting money from the people claiming they would be providing them with affordable houses which are meant for the urban poor under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

The NGO is claiming that they have been appointed by MHADA to implement this scheme and has been collecting money from the people. The group has been collecting Rs 300 from the people for filling up the forms. Though there are no official records, sources in MHADA believe that they have already looted around 1000 families.

The group has been telling the people to come together and then they would be demanding land from MHADA or affordable houses from them and give it to the people. Things came into the light when people started coming to MHADA with their queries.

Under the Basic Service for Urban Poor (BSUP) scheme, the Central government provides a subsidy of Rs 2 lakh to the agency that constructs the houses. However, MHADA has been appointed as the nodal agency to execute the construction of these houses.

" We have been appointed by the government and no other body or agency has the authority to build houses or collect money from the people for this scheme as we haven't outsourced this project to anyone" said Vaishali Sandansingh, Public Relation Officer, MHADA. Many economically backward house aspirants are not aware about the rules and are hence are a vulnerable lot. "We would like to appeal the people to verify the claims by any agency as far as housing issue are concerned," she added.

Apex court sets aside HC order on property tax in Nariman Point

Setting aside Bombay High Court's judgement of March 2006, the Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed Co-operative Societies of Nariman Point to file an appeal in the dispute relating to property taxes affecting the city's financial hub.

The apex court while observing that the Bombay High Court's judgement did not correctly consider the earlier 2003 order of the Supreme Court in the Kamla Mill case, remanded for fresh consideration of the municipal corporation's appeal filed in Bombay High Court.

The dispute revolves round the measure of rateable value on which property tax could be charged. Till March 2000, the municipal corporation accepted standard rent as the only measure and the property taxes were restricted to Rs 2 per sq-ft.

The municipal corporation claimed after the 1999 Rent Control Act, it can charge the rent received by a member of a co- operative society as basis of rateable value. Between 2000- 2007, for rented premises property tax ranged between Rs. 19.50 psf to Rs. 32 psf.

Since April 2008, the municipal corporation charged on actuals, thus raising property tax to Rs 156 psf, on the basis of the Bombay High Court's order passed in March, 2006 which is now set aside and will need to be considered afresh.

BMC will float road tenders online in April

After much delay, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will finally float its tender online for roads worth Rs 500 crore by early next month, officials said.

Late last year, after receiving flak for the poor conditions of the road, the civic administration had decided to sanction an additional amount of Rs 500 crore for both construction of new roads and maintenance of existing ones, thereby making the total expenditure on roads to Rs 1,000 crore.

The phase wise tender for roads worth Rs 500 core was slated to be floated by mid- November 2010, but due to technical glitches the process did not take off. Officials back then had stated that the delay had been due to devising a foolproof method of conducting e- tendering, process which will ensure cent percent transparency.

"The state governmentappointed Standing Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) has already presented its recommendations on concretisation and maintenance of roads to the BMC and they have asked us to show our designs to the peer- committee, hence we have approached IIT, Mumbai, for the review," said Aseem Gupta, Additional Municipal Commissioner.

He further said the work on this regard is in full swing and tenders would be out by April 1, 2010. The BMC in its budget this year, had made allocation of Rs 500 crore and had proposed to continue the policy of concretizing, in order to solve the ever- increasing traffic problem and also to minimize the maintenance cost of the road.

The phase I of the for the cement- concrete works of road in 2011- 12 include concretization of about 10.23 km roads in City, about 12.50 km roads in Eastern Suburbs and about 7.50 km to Western Suburbs. The phase also includes asphalt roads of about 7.43 km in City, about 22.40 km in Eastern Suburbs and about 12 km in Western Suburbs.

Even as the BMC has increased the defect liability period from five years to 15 years for cement concrete roads, and from five years to 10 years for asphalt roads, to ensure that contractors maintain work quality, the delay of floating the tender, in all likelihood, will have an impact on the completion of road work before the monsoon this year.

It’s raining woes in Garib Nagar

With the Friday's fire having destroyed everything it could at Garib nagar (slums), Bandra (East), except for their lives, it's raining woe for the slum dwellers. The lack of physiological needs like food, clothing, shelter, water and sleep stare them in the face. Except for maybe Rubina Ali of the Slumdog Millionaire fame, who may move to her posh flat, the over 50,000 fire affected are left homeless, pensive about fulfilling their needs. In fact, the slum dwellers, including minors, prefer to live in unsteady structures, where a collapse may cause fatal casualties, said a volunteer.

" The water supply is cut off. NGOs, Mumbaikars, religious and political communities, a news channel are providing us with eatables, water, clothes and first aid. But, for how long? After a few days, the lack of these elementary needs shall haut us," said another local.

Mohammad Sikander (32), one of the affected resident who has been living there for the last decade, claims to have lost property worth Rs 2 lakh. " I lost everything. I have three school- going children. On Tuesday morning, we have been called to a nearby municipal school to get our compensation, which is around Rs 5, 000." " There are two tubelights erected near the station which are surely not enough for the entire slum area. With all the 12 toilets in our slum area destroyed, there are two mobile toilets provided to us by the BMC, which have run out of water within hours. While women are using a couple of public lavatories for Rs 3 each, men are forced to use the ground behind the slum," added another local.

Amjad Shaikh (24), a tailor said, " I live here on rent, I may or may not get this compensation of Rs 5,000. But, I have lost property worth Rs 2.5 lakh which includes 16 sewing machines. My house and business is destroyed, where do I go?" In the last two days, doctors, including senior doctor Armida Fernandez along with Dr Ramesh Potdar and four others, provided medical aid to around 200 people from 10am to 7pm. Indicating the total absence of an effective crisis management, a doctor said on condition of anonymity, " Proper toilets, clean water supply, garbage disposal and proper distribution of food, clothing and water is the need of the hour. These things will lead to an outbreak of cholera and diarrhoea in no time." Another person along with the doctors said, a truckload of hand gloves would help, as there were enough locals to volunteer for removing the garbage.

" The spectrum seen is 80 per cent of these suffered minor wound injuries, rest 20 per cent being headaches, backaches, respiratory problems and anxiety (about their future)," said Fernandez.

Potdar of Centre for Study of Social Change, which runs one such centre in 20 slums across the city, said, " Many dwellers do not know what we are doing here." Before
this, there was a major fire in adjacent Behrampada slums, around two years ago. Locals said, back then too the cause of fire never came to light.

IPS officer Pandey knocks HC doors for justice

Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the 1986 batch, Sanjay Pandey has moved the Bombay High Court seeking its intervention in delivering speedy justice denied to him by the state government.

Pandey, who has been kept on compulsory waiting (no posting) since June 18, 2007, without promotions, salary and benefits he is legally entitled to as a civil servant had knocked on the door of the Central Administrative Tribunal's Mumbai bench, but the state government is allegedly applying delay tactics.

Pandey had filed a petition in CAT on March 25, last, against the state government denying him promotion, salary and refusing to reinstate him with a posting.

Pandey has been the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone VIII), DCP (Economic Offences Wing) and DCP (Narcotics) in Mumbai commissionerate between 1992 and 1999. Later he was deputed to the Centre as Assistant Inspector General of Police in the Special Protection Group, where he was assigned the task of providing security to

Prime Ministers and former prime ministers of the country. He was also Joint Commissioner of Food and Drugs Administration (Vigilance). Pandey in his petition to the HC, has put up a plea asking for an appropriate writ or order directing CAT to either dispose off or determine the petitioner's Original Application (OA) filed before CAT, since there is an unreasonable delay on the part of CAT. Apparently, CAT has yet to either dispose off or determine on the OA, which had been listed for final hearing on September 12, last but did not figure on the board under the caption of final hearing since August 8, last. Hence Pandey aggrieved by the delay in disposing off his OA by the CAT bench, moved HC petitioning it to issue clear cut directives to CAT to either dispose or decide on the OA. " The only issue before CAT's Mumbai bench is over the issue of non- compliance of the order of the Delhi bench of CAT passed on March 1 2005, which had directed the state government to re- instate Pandey in service with effect from April 12, 2004 with all consequential benefits and to comply by the directives within two months.

However, even after five years have elapsed there is no move on part of the state government to comply with the order in totality. He has been denied his fundamental right to life and livelihood as he is not only denied a posting and promotion which is long over due to him as per the constitution, but also denied salary and other monetary benefits he is entitled to as a civil service officer.

There is neither a criminal case or charges of corruption against him," claimed advocate Clifford Martis who is representing him in CAT and HC. In a letter to Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan which Pandey personally submitted to Chavan, on February 22, listing out his grievances about the injustice meted out to him by the state government, Pandey has highlighted the fact that he has been humiliated with juniors superseding him while his fate continues to be undecided by the government.

Pandey has underlined in the letter that with no salary or monetary sustenance from the government despite him being upright, honest and having an excellent track record, his status is worse than officers facing serious criminal charges in the state who are enjoying compensatory benefits in terms of sustenance allowance, government-owned accommodation, support staff among other official benefits. However, till date Chavan has still to take up his case with the Home Minister R R Patil.

Demolition of 40 Bandra crosses put on hold !

Local residents of Bandra finally got a respite from the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) over the issue of demolition of 40 crosses supposedly hindering road widening projects.

On Tuesday, Arif Naseem Khan, Guardian Minister for suburban Mumbai got an assurance out of Municipal Commissioner Subodh Kumar that BMC would put on hold for a month its plan to demolish crosses that are obstructing the road widening work in Bandra.

Subsequently, Kumar agreed to Khan's suggestion that BMC should verify the legal status of the crosses and only then take appropriate action after a month. On Tuesday, a delegation led by Vice Chairman of the Minority Commission, Abraham Mathai called on Khan seeking his intervention in the matter since the BMC was planning to demolish the crosses within 48 hours.

Member of the Mumbai Gaothan Panchayat, Neil Pereira, told us that local residents had taken up cudgels against the BMC since these were authorised crosses constructed by their ancestors in 1890 and 1920 to seek spiritual protection against the deadly plagues which took a huge toll on lives of local residents of these villages in Bandra.

" We had submitted the legal documents to the BMC in 2003 when the civic body had launched a crackdown on shrines and places of religious worship which were illegally standing on public property. However, on Monday we were shocked to hear from the local Deputy Municipal Commissioner Sudhir Naik that the BMC had misplaced the documents.

What irked the locals was that demolition notices were pasted on the crosses instead of serving the 48- hour deadline notice to the local custodian of the crosses or either inquiring or informing the church authorities about its demolition plan. BMC needed to have called for objections from local before pasting the order," said Pereira.

Khan, after giving a patient hearing to the delegation, telephonically spoke to the civic chief and asked him to review BMC's proposed move to demolish the crosses that stand in the way of the road- widening project in Bandra. Khan cautioned Kumar on the issue of BMC respecting the religious sentiments of the local Catholic population and asked him to cautiously act in the matter. He advised Kumar to closely examine whether the Supreme Court order issued to the Gujarat government on demolishing places of worship for executing infrastructure development project applies in the case of crosses in Bandra, too, which the BMC is relying upon in the crosses case.

" I am writing to Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan requesting him to issue directives to the BMC to relocate the crosses demolished by the BMC and cautiously carrying out the demolishing operation without hurting the religious sentiments of the locals. I have even asked Kumar to ensure that the BMC examines the documents related to legal proof on the existence of the crosses with the city survey office, within a month. In cases where the legal crosses have been relocated in consultation with the local custodian, then documents should to be provided to the local custodian of the crosses as legal proof for future reference, " asserted Khan.