The Brave Pedestrian

Mumbai, 30 th December 2016: Did you know that Mumbai municipal officials can bulldoze and smash entire streets without official paperwork? No show-cause notices, no letters and memos, no demolition register entries, no records whatsoever. It's like normal BMC tod-phod in broad daylight, except there's no paper trail. If you ask under Right To Information, BMC says, “No records exist”. On the morning of 10 th December, 2015, Dinesh Bhosle (Sub Engineer H/West Ward), Vikrant Manyar (Junior Engineer) and Siddharth Kasare (petty works contractor) went to 40 th Road, Old Khar West with casual labourers and a hired bulldozer, and smashed up many shop extensions. Here's a video of the demolition , with local resident Imran Mansuri (red shirt) arguing with BMC officials and a policeman. Constable Sanjay Ware in this photo was identified by Khar Police Station in response to Imran’s RTI application. Following Mansuri's complaint to Deven Bharti , Joint ...

WARNING: AFTER REDEVELOPMENT, LET CERTIFIED ARCHITECTS MEASURE YOUR NEW FLAT. YOUR FLATS MAY BE MUCH SMALLER THAN AGREED! Mumbai, 29th April 2011: Read this, and take a warning, all you optimists who voluntarily wish to go in for building redevelopment. The residents of Nensey Cooperative Society, Bandra West, have been thoroughly duped by the prestigious builders who redeveloped their building – Ekta Supreme Corp. Not only were they given smaller flats than specified in the redevelopment agreement, their common spaces were sold. With the connivance of the chairman and secretary, Ekta Supreme skimmed off Balcony FSI space belonging to the individual home-owners and added it to their share i.e. the sale component of the building. Defying logic, arithmetic and laws, the sale component now exceeds the share of the original home-owners! While most people have remained silent, five residents – businessman Shabbir Lokhandwala (Ph 80975 88152, associate member of society and nominee of...