Delayed sewer plan will drain Garodia Nagar Ghatkopar locals of Rs 2.95 cr

The Con game of BMC 

Article that came in the Times of India - Mumbai April 26, 2010

Mumbai: Residents of Garodia Nagar in Ghatkopar are upset with the BMC,which has asked them to pay Rs 2.95 crore within 15 days for the revamp of the drainage system in the area.The people alleged that the civic body had pushed back the project as a result of which the cost had escalated and so they were being compelled to pay such a high amount.

The assistant assessor and collector,N ward,served the demand notice to the Garodia Nagar Welfare Federation (GNWF) recently,asking them to collect the amount from all the housing societies.In its notice,the civic body said the consolidated amount of Rs 2,95,34,178 was being sought as the residents share1 /3rd of the costfor the laying of a sewerage in the area.

The residents moved court after a series of inspections by civic officials confirmed that the drains in Garodia Nagar were dysfunctional,which led to the spilling of the waste into the precincts of a few other buildings.In August,2004,as an interim arrangement to reconstruct the drains,the Bombay high court directed the BMC to collect the residents share.

GNWF secretary G T Jadeja said,In December 2004,following our correspondence,the BMC informed us that the total cost of the project will be Rs 3.19 crore.Since then,we have been asking them to show us the break-up of the amount to be shared by housing societies.

Now,after all these years,they suddenly want nearly Rs 3 crore,almost equivalent to the entire project cost,going by the 2004 rates. Residents said they were being forced to shell out extra because the BMC took so much time.Had the work started in 2004,the residents would have had to pay only Rs 1 crore as their share, Jadeja said.Owing to the BMCs delay,the project cost has now increased to around Rs 9 crore.Why should the residents bear the brunt when the civic body itself pushed back the date.

There are 155 housing societies in the locality,of which 131 are affiliated to the GNWF.KVR Warrier,another member of the federation said,Each society will have to pay something between Rs 70,000 and Rs 3 lakh,depending on the size of their plot.My housing society,with 30 members,has been asked to pay Rs 2,25,000.

Jadeja said the court had pointed out that the 1/3rd share was an interim arrangement and in the final order it would be determined who would have to bear the entire cost.He added,The BMC has carried out similar projects with money from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission fund.They should do the same for this project.

B Shirshat,local corporator,however,said,The residents need not pay any amount as the sewage problem has been sorted out. Disagreeing with Shirshat,Jadeja said,The problem still persists as the sewage from several societies still runs into the stormwater drains,which are covered and cannot be seen from outside. Additional municipal commissioner Anil Diggikar said,I am not aware of the issue. 

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Monsoon Mayhem in Mumbai

Waiting for the rains and then it poured on July 14th, Mumbai again came to a standstill. No matter how much hard earned tax-payers money is utilised (are they by the BMC) the situataion is still the same.

Just a down pour for 10 hrs and 200 MM of rains this time , remember in 2005 it was 990MM , but we were still struggling to survive, the Mithi river had crossed the danger mark and then it receded because the rains stopped, other wise it was disaster.

Garodia Nagar and the surrounding colonies were as usual flooded, and as written in my earlier post, this year it was more so because the BMC started tiling the concrete cover over the gutters post June 20th, and the mess and quality is less said the better.

Clicked few flooding photos of the day - couldn't take out the camera as it was very heavy rains and would have damaged it beyond repair.

Now the eclipse and the hide tide for the next few days will determine wheter the city be able to survive if the rains are heavy on these days.

The neighbours from the ground floor did not want to take a chance and few have them have kept some of their furniture's other stuff with mattress in higher floor residents homes.

But all in all a welcome relief from the unbearable summers and water shortage problems.

Mumbai Flooding - Garodia Nagar

Down and out for some time due to tooth surgery. It has been raining whole week here in Ghatkopar and is something very good for the people / country and agriculture.

Water woes has been the word all that we are hearing all around the country and with the coming of rains has brought a God sent relief.

Garodia nagar has been facing the same problems year after year , the BMC and the people just turn blind eye and move on, its only gutsy few who have stood up and raised the issue time and again, of these most of them are retired people past 65 years.

The residents have not bothered to see how the BMC and the utility companies do a shoddy job and run away, and consequence of all this the entire colony has to face.

The Local corporator has done little to see what the plight of the colony is , nor the MP or the MLA who by the way stays just a few minutes from the colony.

BMC started the cleaning fo the gutters on June 10th in Garodia Nagar and left all the debris/garbage on the roads and having had enough time with delayed rains which started only on June 24th the garbage is still on the road and now is a stinking slippery and dirty muck all over the road.

The BMC started tiling the concrete cover of the gutter which again started On June 20th and has still not finished, the result is the contractor has left all the sands/ left over mixed cement and debris without bothering to have it collected and packed off in the garbage trucks. The entire colony is filled with muck , most of which have blocking the opening to the gutter and water being collected all over the roads, making life miserable for the residents to walk, and vehicles passing by splashing the muck on people who have no choice but to walk that path.

Yet inspite fo this none bother to stop and ask the contractor to have the area clean up after the work .

They city and garodia nagar has witnessed many flooding, epidemic , health hazards due to all this, but not many will stop and take and initiate or come together to that some thing more can be done by just walking by and suffering quitely.

Rains In Mumbai and Flooding

Long Hiatus again , cause it time to get prepared for the rains, specially if you reside in Mumbai / garodia nagar, ghatkopar.Well the first showers were here in the morning today, the roads were wet and small pools of water collected on the roads.The morning air had the earthy smell, like it always does when the first showers fall on the soil.

Come rains in Mumbai and the people start running for taking all the precautions so as not to get trapped in the now infamous Mumbai flooding that have become such a regular thing.

The gutters / drains have now been cleared to some extent by the BMC in Gardoia Nagar albeit late or must say very late. But the debris removed from the gutter is still lyin gon the raod as it has not been collected by the dumper.

I don't understand the working schedules, timelines of the BMC, this is the 4th year since the flooding of 2005 which made Mumbai a death trap. Yet the BMC fails to implement a schedule to clean and tar the surface and potholes much before the May deadline.The cleaning of the Garodia Nagar gutters began just last week, and this also is being done by the contractors hired by the BMC, their work hardly monitored or supervised by the men In BMC and is left entirely to the contractors, who are totally hand in glove with the ward officials and pay good amount of money to the officials to see that they don't give a bad report about the same.

For long the gutters were not covered , so it was much easier for the ALM sweepers to clean them as and when they had the time. Now with the BMC taking over the cleaning of the same and with the gutters being closed / covered with concrete with very small drain covers it does not give much space to clean the gutters completely, thus accumulation of rain water is always there.

With the main Nalla, route of the water that pass into the large chambers / channels to the sea is covered with debris and illegal construction on these areas and squatters have made this problem more acute.

The BMC has time and again always blamed the utilities and other agencies working for the betterment of the roads and infrastructure as the main source of the flooding and pothole problems, this is not entirely wrong as most of the utilities specially the telecom companies and the electrical power companies dig at their own will and hardly take the effort to cover the roads in a proper manner , or quality of material ,without any knowledge of civil work the contractors of these companies make a mess of the nice and evenly tarred road, resulting in water logging and pot holes with the first rains.

Coupled with the Potholes, untimely or no cleaning of the drains gutter, poor scheduling, the lack of responsibility from the BMC as well as the utilities and also the general residents poor civic sense to adhere to have a proper disposal of dry wet garbage, Mumbai has become the richest garbage dump city of the world .As for Garodia Nagar, the ALM's were doing a good work with proper coordination and with little or no help from the residents they had still managed to keep the colony nice and clean.

But the residents most of them highly educated, cultured and knowledgeable are still bad when it comes to civic sense, the dry wet garbage disposal which was time and again shown and demonstrated by the local housewives , and men and children has not made any sense to these so called clean and knowledgeable residents.

The most basic problem is the segregation of dry wet garbage at source , in own homes many still don't do this and unless we have this system in our very homes and each and every individual becomes more responsible for what is happening in our homes and neighborhood , we all will be walking in dirty , goo (shit and urine filled drain waters coming from our very own toilets and ours neighbors , our children will go to school in the same waters, working people dressed up in best of clothes and shoes will just ignore and without looking down in the shit will walk and go to and come home as if it was nothing but plain good water.

Happy shit and urine filled monsoon to all of Mumbai, may all of us enjoy each others shit and urine and may God bless Mumbai with all the best diseases & epidemic.