By a Correspondent
Mumbaiwalla !!! – a forum of concerned Mumbaikars is contemplating filing a PIL in the Bombay High Court seeking compensation for the untold hardship and financial losses to the citizens of Mumbai. Mahanagar Gas Limited (MGL), the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the administrative machinery of Mumbai including the Government of Maharashtra and other authorities will be made respondents in the matter regarding the damage to the CNG pipeline which kept about 90,000 autorickshaws and about 80 per cent of Taxis off the roads of Mumbai causing untold hardship to students who were appearing for their board exams not to forget financial losses to several other businesses etc.
Mumbaiwalla !!! is a general helpline for Mumbaikars, particularly for those who are new to Mumbai and unable to find their way in the city. Mumbaiwalla !!! provides information services, co-ordinates with service providers, Utility and Telecom services, employment agencies, Facilities Management Servics and other general purpose service agencies. The aim is to try and make life a wee bit easier for Mumbaikars, says Flynn Remedios, a spokesperson for Mumbaiwalla !!!.
Mumbaiwalla !!! also has a social service cell which undertakes activity to help the underprivileged, downtrodden and poor.
Hundreds if not thousands of software engineers from Delhi, Chandigarh, Bangalore and smaller towns recruited by Call Centres, BPOs and IT firms like Oracle, TCS, Mphasis and banks like Citibank and H3GS located at Mindspace (Malad), Infinity Park (Film City, Goregaon East), Bandra-Kurla complex who are completely new to Mumbai had to shell out anywhere between Rs 200 to Rs 400 to reach their homes as autorickshaws and Taxis charged a hefty premium.
According to a report in Mid-day, “The BMC does not have a map of the underground utilities such as water and gas pipelines, and drainage system due to which the incidences of pipeline damage are on the rise. On Monday, a Mahanagar Gas Limited pipeline was damaged while the BMC staffers were widening a nullah for the storm water drainage project, disrupting CNG supply.
An official from the BMC said, “The BMC had decided to carry out GIS-based digital mapping of the city’s structures (building by building) that sent the project cost shooting upto Rs 240 crore, while actual allocation for the project was Rs 32 crore. The idea of mapping water pipelines was scrapped last year as the cost was exceeding.”
At present, the civic body has an old water pipeline map sans newly developed areas. In January 2011, BMC finally invited tenders from private parties for carrying out digital surveys to map around 33 underground utilities in the city. Digital images of those will be compiled on the basis of information collected by the GIS surveys. Then, these images would be juxtaposed on the city’s base map.
“But we have not yet received the base maps from the NIC as well as clearance from the defense ministry for conducting the survey in sensitive areas in its jurisdiction, “said BMC’s Information Technology assistant commissioner Yogesh Mahangade. The BMC survey will mainly involve collecting information about civic-controlled utilities such as water, sewerage networks and storm water drain lines. But in the process, the other utilities under the ground too will get automatically recorded, another official said.”
According to a report in the Times of India, “The problem began late on Monday night as news spread of a tear in the main pipeline supplying CNG to Mumbai region. The breach had occurred earlier in the day when a piling machine being used by a civic contractor to concrete a drain hit the GAIL pipeline close to the Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers (RCF) plant in Wadala.
Immediately after the accident, GAIL and Mahanagar Gas Limited (MGL) turned off the supply of CNG to the latter’s 148 filling stations and, as a result, to lakhs of autorickshaws, taxis and private cars. Officials promised supply would be normalized by Tuesday night.
Normally, MGL supplies about 9.8-lakh kg of CNG to the region every day. On Tuesday, only 3.5-lakh kg was delivered. Worst affected were western and central suburbs besides the island city.
The incident touched off the usual game of passing the buck between government agencies.”
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BMC Elections 2012 