Mr, Mani Raman from Chedda Nage sent us these pictures with this note :

” The internal road in Cheddanagar (Chembur) is completely filled with huge potholes. Attaching photos for your reference.
Pls take it up with necessary officials. The condition of this road is same since more than a year now. The residents are having lot of inconvenience because of this. Even Auto rickshaw drivers deny on taking this road because of potholes. “

Thanks Mr. Mani.

We were told that the work has actually began on fixing these roads and will be done before the beginning of Ganesh Chaturthi…

Excerpt from DNA, reported By Baljeet Parmar on Aug 3, 2010, : Read Full Article

For the Ganeshotsav celebrations this year, the Sahyadri Krida Mandal of Tilak Nagar, Chembur, is erecting an exact replica of Hampi’s historical Vitthala temple for the astronomical sum of Rs2 crore — a record.

The mandal has always been in the news for two reasons: its elaborate pandals and its clandestine funding by underworld don Chhota Rajan — though the organisers deny this.

To meet the September 11 Ganeshotsav deadline, more than 300 workers, including engineers, architects, tracers and carpenters, are doing double shifts. When ready, the replica will be 130 feet long, 40 feet wide and 35 feet high, and will be housed in the colony’s community hall.

The Vitthala temple — Vitthala is an avatar of Vishnu — is the most ornate of the temples in Hampi, which is near Hospet in Karnataka. The temple was constructed in the 15th century. Its front portion consists of a huge mahamandapam (pillared hall).

Excerpt from Mid-Day.com, on July 31, 2010 : Read Full Article

He had stepped out of home to go to the bank. Instead, he landed in a home for beggars, thanks to the unnecessary and extra concern shown by a policeman.

Colaba resident Robert D’souza (62), who is visually challenged, was picked up by a police constable in the first week of this month and, much against D’souza’s wishes, taken to the Beggars’ Home in Chembur.

The beggars’ home is, as its name suggests, a charitable home that takes cares of mendicants.

“That morning, I was passing by Cusrow Baug in Colaba, to go Central Bank’s Fort branch. I am blind and also have a wound,” said D’souza.

“With a walking stick for support, I was requesting passers-by to help me to the bus stop when a sturdy hand grabbed me by the arm and dragged into a waiting vehicle.” D’souza said no questions were asked and before he knew it he was taken to the home for beggars. “How right is it on the part of the police to do such a thing?” he asks staring into nothingness.

This is the second such case of a man who is not a beggar but is being forced to live in a beggars’ home.

D’souza, a bachelor, has since been moved out of the home for beggars and has now been shifted to a home for dying destitute persons at Tagore Nagar in Vikhroli.

“Life at the beggars’ home was a nightmare. We were treated worse than prisoners and the food served was not meant for human beings,” D’souza told MiD DAY. “We were served half-cooked rice, a watery dal and boiled brinjal for lunch and dinner.”

This was in sharp contrast to the daily diet regimen that this former employee of a multinational firm was used to in the comforts of his home. “My daily diet comprised a chocolate-flavoured milk drink, sweet corn soup and bread.”

D’souza is annoyed at the constable who mistook him for a beggar and took him to the charity home. Life was always a bed of roses for D’souza till his mother, Mariya, passed away 17 years ago.

Excerpt from Mumbai Mirror, compiled by Ajit Ranade on July 10, 2010: Read Full Article

There is something fishy about BMC’s approach of rewarding waste carters with generous ‘tipping fee’.

Mumbai produces six thousand tonnes of solid waste every day. This is the smelly stuff. There’s also debris from the frenetic construction which generates another two thousand tonnes.

The garbage is carted to four major dumping sites, at Gorai (near Borivali), Mulund, Kanjurmarg and Deonar. In those sites it is either buried or burnt or both. Some years ago, strange fumes started coming out of one of the landfill sites near Gorai, in Malad, spreading panic among the office towers which had sprung up on that site. In Deonar, garbage was being burnt all these years, causing smoke in surrounding areas of Chembur, Ghatkopar and Govandi.

The smoke led to many respiratory ailments for most residents living in houses surrounding Deonar dumping grounds, causing residents to form the Smoke Affected Residents’ Forum (SARF) in 1996. This forum filed a public interest litigation (PIL) against the BMC in the high court asking for relief. Mumbai’s garbage has long since exceeded the city’s capacity to burn and bury it. Now the emphasis is on waste treatment.

By 2000, there was a national policy on urban waste management for all India which reiterated the need to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Is it possible to think of zero garbage localities? Rather than carting away waste, it is best to reduce it at the origin itself. By separating wet and dry garbage, by composting all biodegradable waste, it is possible to reduce waste to a minimum.

Excerpt from DNA, reported by Pandurang Mhaske on July 16, 2010: Read Full Article

In this age of contract jobs, which can be terminated for even minor mistakes, there lives a peon of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) who got promoted, leave alone being fired, even after not reporting to work since the last 17 years.

Though he is on leave without pay, he is entitled to back-dated salary for yearly leaves, along with provident fund and gratuity dues. Could there be a better employer to not work for?
Sunil Gorivale was appointed in the municipal secretary department as a peon on July 11, 1993. However, after a brief four-month stint, he lost interest in the job and started bunking regularly. Emboldened by no action being initiated against him, he decided to do away with the formality of reporting to work altogether in 1995.

His absence was without intimation, and no one bothered.
The civic body discovered his absence more than five years later, when departmental records showed that he had been absent from June 30, 2001 to June 2, 2003. A departmental inquiry was initiated against him for his 703-day absence. As a result, his annual increment was withheld, after being approved by the standing committee in April 15, 2005. When Gorivale was intimated, he applied for leave without pay. Though it was not approved, he continued to be on the rolls.

Excerpt from Mid-Day, reported by Shiva Devnath on 2010-05-18 : Read Full Article

This illegal game of betting is thriving in the city after the death of Suresh Bhagat, though on a smaller scale

Though the matka king Suresh Bhagat may be dead and long gone, and his kin languishing in prison, it seems business as usual for the habitual matka player in the city. And, if sources are to be believed, it’s none other than the police who are in charge, and making the most of it.

BUSINESS AS USUAL: A matka operator places a bet. Pic/Shiva Devnath

MiD DAY did a check at various areas in the city and learnt that matka is still rampant, chiefly in Chembur, Malvani and Oshiwara. To top it all, large amounts of money is put on bet, for, as they say, “mera number kab lagega”.

Chembur camp near Inlaks hospital at Chembur (E): The matka den is owned by one Kara Sheth. When this correspondent visited area, he found around 100 people were playing matka. Goons were keeping an eye on the police. The area was dark so as not to raise suspicion. The reporter finally got to a small room, where one person was writing down numbers, as asked for by the players, on chits of paper and putting them inside a matka. The winning number fetches around Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. In the process, the police also allegedly get their commission.

Excerpt from DNA, reported by N Raghuraman on 17th April  2010: Read Full Article

I must thank the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) for delaying Santa Cruz-Chembur Link Road (SCLR) project endlessly. Of course, they are doing a yeoman’s service by obliging us with a job they are supposed to do. Who are we? Mere taxpayers!
So, if we are paying through our nose, we are not supposed to ask why a World Bank-aided project has not been completed in six years. The Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road (JVLR) is yet to get completed despite the fact it was started in 1999. Thus connecting the East-West corridor of the city remains a distant dream even now.
For more than six years now, impediments have jinxed the SCLR project, the latest being rehabilitation of occupants on one of the plots, who are unwilling to vacate. Well, is it something we need to worry about? What then is MMRDA worth?

Excerpt from Jyothi Bhave’s BLOG : Read Full Article / Visit her blog

My gardening efforts took off in 2000 when I shifted to ground floor flat with a small empty patch by the side of my flat. Wanting to be a true gardener first i bought all the tools and started digging the land. Planted few flowering plants like Anant, Jaswandi, Sonchafa Sadafuli so also Kadipatta and Tulsi. As the days passed I realised that growing plants gave me a feeling of growing children and i started observing them, taking care of them and loving them.

Last year when I tried to grow Bottle gourd, Okra and Palak, for my project, my first attempt to grow vegetables, I realised that I dont know the right way of growing them organically except adding dried cow dung to the red soil. The need to know about organic farming made me surf the net and I came to know about Preeti’s terrace garden. The flowers, fruiting trees and variety of vegetables grown in just 3000 sq ft motivated me to know about her techniques which is Natueco Farming.

After attending 7th June 09 workshop I was eager to make Amrut Mitti myself. For me procuring cow dung, cow urine and biomass was a challenge initially but when there is a will there is a way. I tied up with a lady outside a temple to provide cow dung and cow urine and started picking biomass from the nearest municipal public garden. I also procured two plastic drums one to prepare Amrut jal and second to store heaps of biomass. The only difficult factor for me was to really wait for 100 days to get perfect matured soil

After I made the first heap in July, I could hardly wait for 30 days and planted a drumstick plant in the semi decomposed biomass. After that I must have made the heaps 4/5 times but i dont remember the dates and used it all for my already existing plants like banana, amla, bamboo, sonchafa, arvi, neem, lemon and few more. Amla has already started fruiting and sonchafa has started bearing beautiful flowers (both 3 yrs old). Arvi leaves, my mum-in -law has cooked thrice so far and I have cooked drumstick leaves for one time vegetable and what can I say……its a great feeling to cook and eat home made vegetable. drumstick plant has started flowering in Feb, now I am waiting for fruiting of Banana and lemon tree.

Best Wishes ,

Jyoti Bhave

… Read Full Article @ Jyoti’s  blog

Excerpt from DNA by Hetal Vyas & Naveeta Singh on April 8, 2010: Read Full Article

The next time you fly in or out of Mumbai, your safety’s not only in the hands of the pilot but also the bird that may obstruct your plane’s path. A Right to Information (RTI) query has revealed that the Deonar dumping ground, which is about 8km from the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA), is one of the main reasons for bird hits at the airport. The slaughter houses in the vicinity of the airport have always known to be the cause of bird hits, which pose a grave threat to lives of passengers.

Taking note of the increasing number of bird hits at CSIA — 13 in 2009 and 3 so far this year — Datta Mane, an advocate, has moved the Bombay high court seeking directives for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to revoke all slaughter house licences. In the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Mane, he also wants the Deonar dumping ground to be shifted from its current location.

Chembur has been always known as a suburb of gardens and restaurants. We have quite a less variety, than that on offer along the western suburbs, but we do have a fair share of eateries that has satisfied the equally demanding palates of us Chemburites.  (Please do participate in the discussion  Eating Out In Chembur )

Came across this post on Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal’s blog post … Excerpts from the Perfect Bite …  http://a-perfect-bite.blogspot.com/2010/03/mad-about-meat.html …

When I first moved to Mumbai, my cousins took me to Leopold café. As I relished their beef mushroom soup and beef chilly, I remember thinking Mumbai would be full of great non-vegetarian places. Imagine my utter shock when I moved to Chembur and only found vegetarian places. To be fair, I later discovered that Chembur can boast of a considerable number of great non-vegetarian places. However, in the beginning, all I saw were vegetarian restaurants. It was a dark and gloomy time for me complete with the raging monsoon rains to bear witness. Not accustomed to how big and busy the city was, my timid attempts to venture out were largely unsuccessful. And the meat lover in me grew more ravenous and rabid, leading me to throw caution to the wind. I began frequenting very shady ‘bar restaurants’ in Chembur camp on my own to devour plate upon plate of chicken and mutton!