The Brave Pedestrian

Mumbai, 24th December, 2016: Mumbai Police recently filed FIR against K Raheja's Palm Grove Beach Hotels Pvt Ltd . Reason? V iolation of Town Planning Act by unauthorized construction of a drainage line in November-December 2015. Many months e ar lier, Palm Grove misled MCGM into giving Drainage Completion Certificate and  Occupation Certificate (OC) for their new building Horizon Green without drainage. T o make up the lacuna, the developer belatedly built a drainage line going uphill. That's right, uphill! T he Deputy M unicipal Commissioner's remarked on 5th January, 2016, "Validity of issue of occupation certificate dated on 18.4.2015 is doubtful " .   I f any flat -owners take possession and come to stay in their flats, they are in for a rude shock . W hen they start having baths and flushing toilets in sufficient numbers , their sewage will o verfl ow . See l evel difference in two blue circles in this drainage plan Near the ...

23 March 2016, Mumbai: While browsing through my old emails, I found the following letter drafted by some of my fellow activists to the powers-that-be a few years back, when Prithviraj Chavan was Chief Minister of Maharashtra, and Sitaram Kunte was the Municipal Commissioner. Methinks this letter is as relevant today as when it was written, back in December 2013. Activist friends like Abbaas Rizvi, who have been working to thwart the encroachment mafias in Mumbai, tell me that the issues that this letter points out are still as bad as ever. And so, I am reproducing this letter here for everyone to read, and hopefully to copy-paste onto their own letterhead, sign and send to the Chief Minister and our civic bosses.    To Hon’ble Chief   Minister of Maharashtra,   Mantralaya   Chief Secretary of Maharashtra,   Mantralaya   Principal Secretary-I, Urban Development Dept   Municipal Commissioner, BMC Head Office, Mahapalika Marg. ...