The Brave Pedestrian

October 20, 2009:  Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) and Maharashtra Government has given in to pressures from builders, and made far-reaching changes in existing laws through the back-door. Bypassing the state legislature, they issued GRs (circulars) that negate existing laws and Development Control Regulations (DC Rules). These changes are endangering lakhs of people in high-rise buildings, and in fact, entire neighbourhoods which are a combustible mix of high-rise buildings, slums, illegal encroachments, CNG filling stations, stores, unauthorized godowns and factories, etc. How was this legal scam carried out?  Read the below scans from a book on Mumbai’s REVISED Development Control Rules 1991 (2003-04 edition). I have marked key points in these scans with a red dot.  Also, many lines are underlined by  Mumbai's Chief Fire Officer (CFO) P D Karguppikar,  who gave these to me during an RTI Inspection. DETAILS OF THE SABOTAGE: A.   ...

Monday, 9 March, 2015, Mumbai: Imagine you are enjoying dinner with your family at Golden Chariot restaurant, on the second floor of Goregaon’s  famous mall, The  Hub. Suddenly, you see smoke. No, not the delicious smoke from a sizzler, but the black, rubbery-smelling smoke from a short-circuit. An uncontrolled blaze has broken out in the building. People are shouting, “Fire! Fire!” and stampeding in panic. But you are calm. You guide your family to the nearest door that says, “FIRE EXIT”. But you are shocked to find that this door only leads to toilets and an enclosed room where drinks and junk are being stored! It does not lead to a staircase! You angrily start yelling at the Golden Chariot employees, asking where is the nearest genuine fire exit door that leads to a staircase. But nobody replies; people are running helter-skelter, the dimly-lit restaurant is filling up with thick smoke, and the temperature is rising. Photo 1: Activist Sulaiman Bhimani (right) show...