1. One Dead, Two Hurt In Chandivali Bldg Crash
A labourer was killed while two more were injured when a portion of an underconstruction building crashed in Chandivali on Saturday after days of heavy rain. At least, four more workers are feared to be trapped in the debris.
The incident, which took place at Sangharsh Nagar at 4 pm, comes exactly a month after the Ghatkopar building collapse in which 17 people died.
According to fire brigade officials, the building, called Krishnan Business Park, was a redevelopment project. But a portion of the under-construction structure didn’t have necessary BMC sanctions. The builder roped in a private firm to demolish the unauthorised floors. Around 50 labourers were engaged in demolition work when a portion of the building crashed.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
2. Mumbai’s Gaothans Up Ante, Form Panel For Protection From Slum Authority
Mumbai’s East Indian community has formed an umbrella body, Gaothan Monitoring Committee, to protect its villages from the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA).
The nine-member committee owes its existence to the one-year-old Gaothan Bachao Andolan, which has 44 associations. Gaothans are urban villages housing indigenous people. Mumbai has 189 gaothans.
According to activist Godfrey Pimenta, the Development Plan-2034 shows only 52 villages as gaothans. This may create a hurdle for the restoration of the remaining gaothans. Of the 52 earmarked gaothans, 20 had been classified as slums by SRA, said Pimenta.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
3. MMRDA Move to Appoint Panel May Backfire
The Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority’s move to appoint a committee headed by retired Supreme Court Justice B N Srikrishna to advise it on the issue of recovering Rs 1,527 crore from Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is likely to backfire on it.
Mirror has reliably learnt that Justice Srikrishna in his report filed last month said that MMRDA’s move to recover the ‘additional premium’ for not completing the work of convention centre and corporate office on time is illegal.
It cited several examples to argue that it would be wrong to recover the amount.
The MMRDA had asked the RIL to pay the ‘additional premium’ for not completing construction work on the two plots allotted to it at the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) in 2007.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
3. Part Of Dilapidated Building Collapses In Dongri, Mumbai, One Hurt
A portion of a three-storeyed dilapidated building today collapsed at Dongri in South Mumbai, leaving one person injured, police said.
The incident occurred this afternoon at Nishanpada road, a senior police official said.
The building belongs to state-run Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) and was vacant for the past few months, the official said, adding the injured was admitted to a local hospital.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
4. Diamonds And Rust
News of two leading companies going belly-up has sent jitters down Mumbai’s diamond bourse. While a consortium of banks declared one of them bankrupt, the other has filed a voluntary petition under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in a US Bankruptcy Court.
The two companies, Interjewels Pvt Ltd and Ankur Diamonds, are leading exporters and manufacturers of diamonds. Interjewels is one of the country’s most prominent diamond firms. Sources close to the development told this newspaper that Interjewels, which is headed by Hemal Choksi, owes as much as Rs 800 crore to banks and private lenders, while Ankur Diamonds is in debt of over Rs 100 crore. When contacted, Choksi, whose company owes about Rs 480 crore to the consortium of banks, insisted that Interjewels was “in fine fettle.”
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
5. Mumbai Metro Construction: Utility Lines Pose Challenge
Around 60 per cent of pile caps have had to be redesigned during the construction of the Metro 7 due to the presence of underground utilities, officials said. For the Metro 2A, the figure is 35 per cent. Pile caps are underground concrete slabs used to give a structure a stable foundation.
While around 200 piles have been completed for Metro 7, for Metro 2A, 162 piles have been completed. Utilities, like water supply pipelines, sewage pipelines, storm water drains, gas pipelines and telephone lines are laid underground and the metro authorities have to work around them to prevent damage to them. “We have to be very cautious. We do an initial trenching of up to 3m to identify utilities. But at some points, the utilities are deeper than that. There, we even use ultrasonic machines to detect them. Once identified, we design our pile caps in a way that the utilities are not affected,” said an engineer working with the Metro 7.
(Source: The Indian Express)
6. Cowdung Finds New Life As Ganpati Idols
Every year, Ganeshotsav proves itself to be the time for great ingenuity and creativity to come to the fore. This time around, a cow shelter run by ISKCON has come up with Ganesh idols made of cow dung and urine.
The Go-Dham Go-shala is situated in the IT hub of Hinjewadi Adlegaon in Maval. It shelters 100 cows, which are not used in the dairy business but to gather dung and urine. A Go-shala volunteer, Nitin Ghotkule, said that the venture was started in 2011. "People always see a cow as a means of making profit through milk. However, the cows that are sheltered here are not milked," he said.
(Source: Mid-day)