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Everything’s in a (road’s) name

Your elected representatives in the BMC are asking more questions about road renaming, rather than things like repairs and sanitation.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

The monsoons should be upon us in the next month, and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is working hard to repair roads that are riddled with potholes and need general repairs. With more and more complaints coming from the citizens, it logically follows that the city’s elected representatives – its municipal councillors – will also take most of the complaints from their wards to the ward committee meetings.

Not necessarily.

A white paper released recently by NGO Praja Foundation recently reveals that of the questions raised by municipal councillors based on citizens’ complaints, the maximum numbers of questions pertained to renaming of roads and chowks in the city. The paper, titled White Paper On Report Of Working Of Ward Committees In The City Of Mumbai And Civic Problems Registered By Citizens, sheds light on the complaints by citizens against the quality and quantity of related questions asked by councillors in the BMC ward committee meetings. “The maximum number of questions asked by elected representatives in ward committee meetings during the year 2012 were on renaming of roads and chowks – a hefty 127 questions!” says the summary accompanying the paper.

The last such study was conducted by Praja in 2010, to similar results. “Some four years ago, when Praja Foundation had issued a White Paper on civic issues, we had found it shocking that of the plethora of problems facing the city of Mumbai, the maximum number of questions asked by the municipal councillors were on the renaming of roads,” the summary says. “In the calender year 2012, BMC received 29,852 complaints related to roads, potholes etc. The 227 elected representatives together asked 100 questions on roads, repairs, etc. However, the maximum number of questions asked by elected representatives in ward committee meetings during this year were on renaming of roads and chowks,” the paper adds.

“Unless municipal councillors learn to interpret data and raise valid, pertinent questions in the ward committee meetings, they are falling far short of the expectations the citizens elected them for. Should our elected representatives be taking the Corporation to task over the citizen’s complaints or should they be only asking the Municipal Commissioner to change names of roads and chowks?”

Incidentally, citizens have complained the most about roads in 2012 – there were 29,852 complaints received (as against 5,177 complaints in 2011). There were 16,194 complaints about drainage, 6,562 complaints against solid waste management and 6,215 water supply complaints.

(Pictures courtesy www.mid-day.com, mumbai-pushpa.blogspot.com) 

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“In Mumbai Region, 40% of us are living in ‘Campa Cola'”

Ramesh Prabhu, Chairman of the Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association, writes to the Maharashtra Government on the Campa Cola building society demolition issue.

“As Mumbai awaits with bated breath for some kind of miraculous intervention to save the 94 families of Campa Cola Compound from being dis-housed, these middle-class families are like the administration’s scapegoats. They represent all of us. As they wait for the raised axe to fall on their necks, my heart goes out to them with sympathy, and I am filled with worry with what will befall the rest of us. I am not competent to comment on the legality or the judicial wisdom of this decision; surely, the Supreme Court knows best. But I would like to ask some questions to no one in particular.

Why only Campa Cola Compound? What about the rest of Mumbai, where over 40 per cent of occupied residential buildings don’t have BMC’s mandatory Occupation Certificates? It is reckoned that at least  6,000 buildings are paying double for municipal water, which means they are not authorised. Many unauthorised structures are routinely regularised on payment of penalties… but there are many more that are not yet regularised for various reasons. Will this axe fall on them also?

And why only Mumbai? What about Thane, Mumbra, Ulhasnagar etc. where thousands of unauthorised (and often unsafe) structures are standing — a disaster waiting to happen?

In all these places, builders have have sold the flats, made off with the life savings of crores of families, worth several thousand crore rupees. Dozens of MPs, MLAs and Corporators from all political parties are routinely the accomplices of these builders, as are the bureaucrats.

As it happened with the three builders of the seven buildings of Campa Cola Compound, developers perpetrate the crime and usually go scot-free. Thousands of architects and contractors who mastermind such unauthorised buildings will also never be caught.

The municipal officials, State Government bureaucrats and police officials who turned a blind eye to the goings on are unlikely to be punished.

Needless to say, no one may point a finger at the judiciary, which willy-nilly allowed cases to drag on for decades and created a perfect window of opportunity for all the illegalities to build up.

When the time comes to for buildings to be demolished, it will be you and me — the common man — who will be running helplessly from pillar to post like the residents of Campa Cola Compound are doing today.

I have no easy solutions to offer. Major surgery is required in the entire MMR region, and that will not be a bloodless and painless process.

But may I humbly urge the State Government and Legislature to frame a humane policy to deal with unsafe buildings first, before demolishing sound structures like the Campa Cola buildings? May I humbly urge Maharashtra Government to avoid shirking its responsibility, and letting municipalities take their own decisions?

If a comprehensive and humane “demolition policy” is not framed, a humanitarian crisis looms large before at least 40 per cent of us in the years to come. Until such a policy is framed, I cannot help feeling that we all are Campa Cola building residents, waiting for our houses to be demolished for one reason or another.

Yours sincerely,
Ramesh Prabhu
Chairman
Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association

The Supreme Court today stayed the demolition notice and gave the affected building residents five months to vacate the premises. The threat of demolition still looms, however.

(Pictures courtesy chandivali.com, mid-day.com)

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Women, be a part of your building’s affairs

The 97th Amendment to the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act 1960 now provides two seats for women on their building’s society’s Board.
by Krishnaraj Rao

Two seats will be reserved for women on the Board of every co-operative housing society, as per the 97th Constitutional Amendment, the amended Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act 1960 and the newly-announced model bye-laws. So far, in the housing societies of Maharashtra, there was only one reserved seat for women, and that mandate was usually ignored. Now, with the State Co-operative Election Authority supervising elections, it will be impossible to ignore this mandate.

The moot question is: will these reserved seats be filled up with ‘Rabridevis’ i.e. women who take orders from their menfolk, and who are dummy candidates of dominating males? Or will the housewives and working women of Mumbai use this opportunity to take their rightful place at the helm of housing societies, so that women’s interests are safeguarded?

It makes good sense that housewives especially should actively participate in the affairs of the building society. After all, they are most affected by the quality of upkeep of buildings, water supply, sanitation etc., as they spend a major part of their day at home.

What prevents housewives from participating in discussions at meetings? Often, it is a lack of confidence. They don’t have the confidence because they feel, or are, ignorant of the laws and rules governing their building. It is time women learnt that they are legally mandated to participate in their building’s administrative matters, and stand for elections.

An interesting aside:

The Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association (MSWA) has organised a three-hour orientation programme specifically for women who wish to participate in governance of their societies, by availing of the reserved seats (and general category seats also if they wish).  With some experience, they can also occupy the paid posts of ‘functional directors’ and ‘expert directors’ as defined in the amended MCS Act.

The orientation programme is slated for Wednesday, May 1, at MSWA, A-2/302, Laram Centre, opposite Platform 6, Andheri West, Mumbai, from 4 pm to 7 pm. A registration fee of Rs 400 per person will be charged, or Rs 300 per person for two or more women from the same building. Contact Vishal Bamne on 98239 11027 or 022-42551414 for details.

(Picture courtesy wikimapia.org. Image used for representational purpose only)

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Mumbai to get a law university

Mumbai, Nagpur and Aurangabad to get their own law universities, on similar lines as the existing one based at Bengaluru. Maharashtra State-based students will pay very nominal fees.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

On a day when the ongoing Session of the State Legislature drew to a close, the State Government okayed a number of key proposals – the key one being the in-principle approval of three National law universities for the State. These universities will be located at Mumbai, Nagpur and Aurangabad.

The Maharashtra National Law Universities in all three locations are to be fully operational in the next three years, with the first one to come up at Aurangabad. A site in Uttan has been approved for the Mumbai Law University. As per a release from the Chief Minister’s office, issued this evening, it seems that a sum of over Rs 75 crore has been set aside for the project. The Government expects that the Universities will be operational by the 2014-2015 academic year.

The release also said that each University will have about 120 students, and Maharashtra-based students will pay nominal fees for their studies. Additionally, reservations for seats will be decided as per the provisions outlined in the Constitution of India.

(Picture courtesy mopolaw.com) 

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The afterlife of images

Rahaab Allana will give a talk today on the context and meaning of photographs in the absence of their creators.
by Medha Kulkarni

The Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, famed for its education programmes and talks for the public, is organising a lecture on ‘The Afterlife of Images’ by Rahaab Allana (in featured image above), curator of the Alkazi Foundation, today.

Exhibitions of photography have been understood in terms of the imperial, modern and post-colonial, and hence have been part of a collective enterprise, representing the complexities between past and present. Even the photographer’s subjectivity is questioned, together with the camera’s ‘framing’ of time: its ability to reveal, censor, alter and re-orient.

But how are these understood when dealing with images whose authors no longer exist? Allana aims to look at archives and its afterlife, where this depth of field haunts the photographs that have no living author. These photographs are often viewed as timeless: a world in which the temporal, spatial and historical form ephemeral links and express the fraught relationship between the personal, self-conscious and the aesthetic. Photography to this extent signifies a complex system: art-practice, visual mode, a process, a tool and hence, an absorbing, malleable means of representation. Allana’s talk will be a reflection through exhibitions curated and assisted by the Alkazi Foundation.

Rahaab Allana is Curator of the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi, where he has curated and co-curated exhibitions with essays over the last four years. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in London.

If you want to attend the talk, do RSVP via email to ccardoza@bdlmuseum.org as seating is limited. Entry is free.

(Featured image courtesy thehindu.com)  

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State’s set up a bank account for drought relief

Donating to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund for drought? Deposit your money in a dedicated State Bank of India account.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

By now, everybody knows that Maharashtra is in the grip of a severe drought, the likes of which have not been seen in years. In a heartening development, however, even as the State Government looks for ways to ease the situation, citizens of the State are coming forward daily to contribute money for those affected by the drought.

Seeing the response to the the Government’s call for help, the State has gone a step further from merely collecting money for drought – today, the Government announced a specially set up bank account where citizens can now directly deposit the money they wish to donate.

The account is a State Bank of India account, whose number is 32860305777. The account has been set up at the State Bank of India’s Fort, Mumbai branch. As per a release from the Chief Minister’s office this afternoon, citizens can now directly deposit their cheques or demand drafts at SBI outlets and address it to the ‘Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (Drought 2013). The bank will give the person a rough receipt, which he/she can then write to the Chief Minister’s Accounts Officer at the Mantralaya with a copy of the rough receipt and request an original one.

(Picture courtesy vickynanjapa.wordpress.com)

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