Editorial

Action for good G overnance &N etworking inIndia

July 2019 > A MonthlyNewsletter > For private circulation only

Forward This To All - And All Forward - Together

CONGRATS AMUL admakers!

What has AMUL to do with MMJ? Well, a lot.

It was decades ago when I, the Editor of MMJ, was sitting

next to Mr. Sylvester daCunha, at one of the social events in

S o u t h M u m b a i . A s t h e Manag ing Ed i to r o f t h e e rs t -while Voice of Wadala,

Dadar, Matunga & Sion, I gave him a copy of the newsletter. He went through it and as a social worker himself, was very impressed by the issue and invited me to his office.

He was very happy to know why I had been publishing

t h e n e i g h b o u r h o o d newsletters. As an Adman he gave me lot of tips on how to i m p r o v e u p o n i t . I incorporated his advice not only in the Voice of Wadala, but also in Mumbai Meri Jaan after I started it for AGNI.

After Mr. Sylvester, Rahul daCunha Contd. on page 4

AGNI kickstarts ALMs in the city

Wadala-GPO Metro set to be partially underground

If you ask the question “Where is Gerson now?”90% of the time the answer is he is “Out of town”“He's just hopped on a plane for a film festival”, they'll sayTo New York, London or Toronto Or Goa on holiday

Hey! Wherever he goes Gerson sees people he knowsHis friends of his friends are his friendsEverybody keeps saying helloWith friends here and friends there and friends along the wayTry crossing the Oval with himYou'll reach only next Sunday

90's a long time and he's still going strongYou think he's going to relax? Oh no! You could be wrongWith AGNI to run he does so many things each dayPromoting RTI to voting to cleaning up Bombay

Hey! Always on the move, Gerson has done a lotFrom adman to theatre to films, To giving writing a shotUma is his wife His partner for lifeShe's always STANDING by his side coz he just won't SIT down

Gerson's the manAt Lintas he was a big hitAnd he loves classical musicWithout it he'd throw a fitAnd though this tune is different from the typical Goan wayHe's Goan enough that we decided to wish him from BombaySo many friends across the world all wishing him in some wayA very happy, happy, happy 90thy birthday

Happy 90th Birthday Gerson(These are the lyrics of a song from a video made by Raell Padamsee for this special occasion - Editor) To see the video go to the link https://youtu.be/PM3ALVgRL_Y

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Pamela Cheema, AGNI Coordinator, S. Ward

On May 29, 2019, AGNI's Chairman, Mr. Sukhthankar

and Convenor, Mr. Gerson Da C u n h a , a l o n g w i t h t h e coordinators of various wards in the city met the new Municipal Commissioner, Mr. Praveen Pardeshi.

Seated in his colonial style office with its high ceiling, exquisite wood paneling and stained glass, Mr. Pardeshi listened intently as the Chairman a n d C o n v e n o r o f A G N I elaborated on the functioning of the NGO. Gerson Da Cunha, who is one of the founders of AGNI (Action for g o o d G o v e r n a n c e a n d Networking in India) informed

the Commissioner about the charter of duties of AGNI, its philosophy and its deep involvement with civic issues in the city. He stated that “it was heartening to know that you as the Commissioner would like to revitalise public participation in civic life in the city.” He emphasised that earlier ALMs and then LAACs worked cohesively with the BMC and Corporators for the public good and underscored that the ALMs need to be restarted again. Mr. Pardeshi replied that when he was the Municipal Commissioner of Pune the budget was prepared by each ward of the city and citizens' c o m m i t t e e s r o u t i n e l y participated in these crucial meetings. “We will send a circular to start ALM meetings again,” he responded quickly to Mr. Da Cunha's request. Mr. Pardeshi then discussed extensively the poor image of the BMC in Mumbai and argued that 85% of the criticism Contd. on page 4

Tanushree Venkatraman

he Metro 11 corridor, Tplanned as an extension of the Metro 4 from Wadala towards south Mumbai at the General Post Office (GPO), may now be partially underground. Once the central government approves an in-principle agreement between the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), this will be the third partially underground Metro corridor in the city. The project was stalled as the MbPT wanted the corridor to go underground and the MMRDA asked it to bear the extra cost. However, the agencies have now reached an in-principle agreement whereby the metropolitan authority will be allowed to develop the areas around the station and fund the underground portion. The two agencies are yet to decide exactly Contd. on page 3

2 Mumbai Meri Jaan July 2019

Underground bins to be set up by June-end

Wards must sort, process their own waste, says BMC

Garden Waste Shredding Machine

Swachha Mumbai Abhiyaan

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Sagar Pillai

n an attempt to reduce Idumping of the city's waste at landfills like Deonar and Kanjurmarg which are nearing t h e i r f u l l ca p a c i t y, t h e Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is looking at d e c e n t r a l i s i n g w a s t e management. In a recent review meeting of the solid w a s t e m a n a g e m e n t department (SWD), Municipal C o m m i s s i o n e r P r a v e e n Pardeshi directed officials to p r o m o t e d i s p o s a l a n d processing of waste at the ward level. SWD officials will now find vacant spaces in the wards which will be used to dispose and process the waste from the area. This is expected to reduce waste from being dumped at Deonar and Kanjurmarg, and divert it across the city. “All wards have been told to identify spots at which waste processing units can be installed. The average size of the plot needed for a bio-methanisation plant to process a particular amount of waste is 1,500 sq. ft. Having waste processing units installed at

w a r d l e v e l s i s c a l l e d decentralisation of waste. This will be very helpful to process, transport and dispose off waste at a city level,” said a senior civic official. As per the civic body's claims, the city was generating up to 9,500 metric tonnes of waste daily in 2015, which was reduced to 7,200-7, 500 metric tonnes by 2018. This was mainly due to measures like penalising bulk generators and encouraging segregation and processing of wet and dry waste. Earlier this month, the civic body appointed the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) to conduct a survey on w a s t e c o m p o s i t i o n a n d quantification across the city. A proposal regarding this was p a s s e d i n t h e s t a n d i n g committee. The survey report will highlight the city's waste generation, transportation and disposal dynamics.

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Sagar Pillai

fter months of looking for Aideal spots to install its u n d e r g r o u n d b i n s , t h e Br ihanmumbai Munic ipa l Corporation (BMC) has almost completed the process of installing them near the Gorai Jetty fish market. This is the third spot in the city to get this facility which will be operational by the end of the month, said a civic official. The civic body has installed the underground bins at only two spots in south Mumbai so far, despite its plan of installing two such bins in each of the city's wards. Ashok Khaire, Deputy Municipal Commissioner (solid waste management), confirmed t h e d e v e l o p m e n t . “ T h e installation work at Gorai will

soon be complete. There are various factors , such as footfalls, that are considered before t h e s p o t s a r e finalised. Several p r o p o s e d a r e a s c o u l d n o t b e considered as they had existing underground facilities that couldn't be moved,” he said. The civic body is also considering a couple of areas in Malad. Utility pipes and wires are posing a major hurdle in the execution of the project, said civic officials. In its 2018-19 budget, the BMC had announced its plan to install underground bins with in-built sensors. Each bin can hold up to 500kg of waste.

Swachh Wadala Abhiyaan

Wadala West Citizens' F o r u m l a u n c h e d

Swachh Wadala Abhiyaan on thJune 9 2019, at Five Gardens.

The funct ion was wel l attended.

The intention of this initiative is to inculcate cleanliness and composting of garbage among citizens. The Forum plans to take this up in different localities of the ward every week. MMJ

Tag the potholes away: BMC plans relaunch of plaints appSagar Pillai

fter former civic chief Ajoy AMehta scrapped the app to track potholes in the city, his successor Praveen Pardeshi h a s a p p r o v e d i t s r e -introduction. According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) plan, citizens will be able to register complaints regarding potholes on the mobile phone app, Voice of Citizens, which will be available on Android and Apple platforms in July. The BMC already has an app called MCGM 24x7 to register all civic

complaints, including potholes. One of the members of the team involved in the process of developing Voice of Citizen said, “New features are being planned to be included in the app in the future. Marking live potholes on-the-go is one of the features that will be added. The app will have a map feature which will show citizens how many potholes will come your way while you are travelling on that particular road.” The software is being developed by Probitysoft, which had been given the contract to

develop the previous edition of the potholetracking app. Vijay Singhal, additional municipal commissioner, said Vo i c e o f C i t i ze n s h a d additional features compared to MCGM 24x7. “With this, we can keep track of not only potholes, but monitor how much material is consumed, whether there are frequent potholes reappearing on the same road and ensure that the quality of such roads is in control,” said Singhal. Voice of Citizens will also alert citizens

if their pothole complaint is already registered with the app to avoid duplication. James John, coordinator with AGNI, said, “It's a step towards good governance so it's a welcome move. Gone are the days when c i t i zens are compelled to go to the ward o f f i c e a n d l o d g e t h e i r complaints. However, this app needs enforcement which means taking action on the complaint by respective agencies. Other than being a user-friendly Contd. on page 3

Mumbai Meri Jaan July 2019 3

Nipping trouble in the bud at R/N

BEST starts free bus service in Kings Circle where 2 FOBs are shut

Preparing for the monsoon in K/West

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Contd. from Page 1 which section of the corridor will go u n d e r g r o u n d b u t m o s t probably it will be in the land owned by MbPT. Sanjay Bhatia, chairman, MbPT, said, “Since they [ M M R DA ] a re ta k i n g i t underground, the difference in cost will be covered by giving them the area. It will, most probably, be near the stations. The decision is in-principle and needs approval from the central government.” The MMRDA had stated that the cost will be ₹1,000 crore per kilometre if the corridor goes underground instead of ₹300 crore per kilometre for an elevated corridor. A stretch of about 4km will be underground in the port trust area. The port trust is working on a grand plan which looks at unlocking the potential value of the land. R A Rajeev, metropolitan commissioner, said, “Like the other metro corridors, we will undertake transit-oriented development and cross-subsidize the cost.” Metro-11 will be the third partially underground corridor in the city. The other two are Metro-7A (Andheri (E)-Chha-trapati Shivaji International Airport) and Metro-8 (Chha-trapati Shivaji International Airport to the proposed Navi Mumbai International Airport), w h i c h w i l l b e p a r t i a l l y underground.

Wadala-GPO Metro set to be partially underground

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BEST officials said the free bus service was

started from MTNL building near Gandhi Market to Kings Circle station where two foot overbridges have been closed by the civic body. A day after Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced free bus r ides in areas w i t n e s s i n g i n c r e a s e d congestion due to closed bridges, the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking started a free bus service in Kings Circle area. BEST officials said the free bus service was started in the evening from MTNL building near Gandhi Market to Kings Circle station where two foot overbridges have been closed by the civic body. “As there was a specific demand from the area, we started the bus service there immediately,” a BEST official said. “The shutting of the two bridges was causing a lot of

inconvenience to people as the area is also a chronic flooding spot. So, I raised the issue with the civic chief asking him to start the free bus service. The bus service was started at 4 pm on Thursday,” said Nehal Shah, local corporator. In all, 29 bridges have been closed in the city. “But to ban private parking and start free bus services, the situation near each bridge needs to be assessed. We may not need to start free bus services near all the bridges,” said an official from the Bridges department of the BMC. “We will need inputs from the traffic police on the congestion and parking problems around these bridges. We will soon have a meeting of all stakeholders and take a decision,” another official said.

Zahida Banatwalla,AGNI's Coordinator K (W)

In Juhu, citizens along with elected representatives held

several meetings and site visits to prepare for the monsoons. We visited the sauchalaya at the end of the beach along with the Officer On Special Duty, Mr. S Pati l , to check on its maintenance. We also met the contractor for beach cleaning to ensure that arrangements were as per the contract. We visited the Irla pumping station to monitor its equipment and its preparedness for the monsoons.

The Juhu Gandhigram Munic ipa l School i s in a dilapidated condition and thus a site visit was arranged. Mr. Ameet Satam sent a letter to Mr. Milin Sawant, Joint Municipal Commissioner (Education) with a c o p y t o D y . C E S c h o o l Infrastructure Cell, Mr. Shaikh, A. O. School, K/West, and Dy. Education Officer i/c WS, informing them that the school building is in a very bad condition. The structural audit stated that the building may pose a grave risk to its students.

Willie Shirshat AGNI Coordinator R/N

The BMC of R/N ward has been conducting LACC

meetings since 2005. The participants are NGOs, ALMs,

housing societies and diverse activists. The BMC officer f ro m t h e S o l i d Wa s t e Management department chairs the meeting which is also attended by officers from other departments. Any issue that remains unresolved is taken up in the quarterly meetings with the Assistant Municipal Commissioner. We have had a fair degree of s u c c e s s w i t h t h i s arrangement. We have also formed a Whatsapp group of concerned citizens and BMC officials. However, due to the overenthusiasm of various stakeholders we found that some members of the group were flouting norms. On June 15 we had a meeting at Patharewadi to deliberate on aspects of the functioning of our LACC and were able to arrive at various conclusions, shedding our differences. After healthy discussions giving every member an opportuni ty to a i r h i s g r i e v a n c e , a g e n e r a l consensus was reached.

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Contd. from Page 2 app, the system should a lso f ix responsibility.” With the old pothole-tracking app, Mumbaiites could upload photos of potholes and geo-tag them after which a civic road engineer would inspect the site and assign a concerned contractor to fix them within 48 hours. If the contractor

defaulted on the work, the engineer be held responsible and the contractor would be penalised by the BMC. The app also allowed BMC to monitor roadworks and track trenching activities when footpaths were dug up. The BMC shut down the pothole-tracking app in 2015 af ter the contract wi th Probitysoft was not renewed.

Tag the potholes away

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Board of Trustees

Chairman & Managing TrusteeD. M. Sukthankar

ConvenorGerson da Cunha

TrusteesCapt. Joe Lobo

Dinesh AhirSharad Kumar

Shyama Kulkarni

Editorial Board

Sharad Kumar [Editor]Pamela Cheema [Asstt. Editor]

Gerson daCunhaShrikant SomanShyama Kulkarni

Email: mmj.agni@gmail.comhttps://sites.google.com/site/ag

nimumbaimerijaan/

Published byAGNI

Chadha Bldg. 1st Flr, Plot No. 95, Wadala (W), Mumbai - 400031

agni.central@gmail.comPh: 2416 5956

www.agnimumbai.in

Printed atAudumber Press, Wadala

4 Mumbai Meri Jaan July 2019

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AGNI Ward Coordinators

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AGNI kickstarts ALMs in the city

Contd. from Page 1 took charge of the agency and continued the campaign.

I am very happy that his iconic AMUL ad is now celebrating its silver jubilee. I now know that three people have been cons istent ly making the ads not from the same room but 'virtually' from their own offices, just as I bring out MMJ 'virtually' whenever I am out of India (the June 2019 and July 2019 issues have been brought out 'virtually'). The three people are Rahul daCunha (the creative head), Manish Jhaveri (the Copywriter) and Jayant Rane (the Illustrator).

Congratulations Rahul, Manish and Jayant and I look forward to the same team reaching its golden jubilee.

Editorial

Mumbai Meri Jaan is also available as an e-edition. Those interested in e-edition may send an email to: mmj.agni@gmail.com

giving their email ids. - Editor

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Contd. from Page 1 was completely unfounded. “We have just not been able to communicate to the public our work in the spheres of roads, cleanliness and supplying potable water to citizens. For instance, if you compare Mumbai and London it's so easy to administer the latter city as nothing changes in London. The population is stable, among other things, hence it's easy to manage the city.” He mentioned that a whopping 90,000 legal petitions have been filed against the BMC! He discussed the citizen-BMC trust deficit and noted that “we will put all the pothole and drainage work that we have done on our website.” Shyama Kulkarni, one of the trustees of AGNI, then briefly outlined the Swachch Mumbai Abhiyan campaign that AGNI is launching in BMC and Urdu medium schools, to begin with, in H (W) Bandra. She described how the schools were composting their waste and wondered if the BMC could assist the campaign. Mr. Pardeshi appreciated the effort and disclosed that he would propose a discount in property tax for all housing societies and commercial establishments which composted their waste. The

Commissioner also revealed that the BMC is planning to construct a sewage treatment plant (STP) at Powai lake with the help of a former IITian and subsequently, STPs will be constructed near all small nullahs. With this, AGNI's first m e e t i n g w i t h t h e n e w Municipal Commissioner was adjourned.

Nellore Meri Jaan launched

Th e N e l l o r e W e l f a r e Federation has launched a

new monthly newsletter, Nellore Meri Jaan, from June 21, 2019. Mr Chandrashekh a r o f t h e N e l l o r e F e d e r a t i o n w a s t h e roommate of M r S h a r a d Kumar, the Editor of Mumbai

thMeri Jaan, at the 6 National C o nfe re n c e o f Re s i d e nt Welfare Associations in India held in November 2018 at Hyderabad. He learnt from Mr Sharad Kumar why AGNI published Mumbai Meri Jaan. On his return to Nellore, he broached the issue with his colleagues and Nellore Meri Jaan was published on June 21, 2019. MMJ

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Road, Pothole complaintson WhatsApp MCGM:-

After demolitionfor donation received in June 2019 from:-

Austin Nazareth Rs.500/=

i t i z e n s c a n r e g i s t e r Ccomplaints of roads, potholes on the following WhatsApp Nos. of MCGM Road Engineers of all 24 wards. You can also upload photos. MMJ