Activists,town planners slam FSI hike proposal

After studying the said ‘professional’ report, it has come to light that the CRISIL report is far from FOOLPROOF as cited by the ‘guardian’ minister Mr.Ganesh Naik.
The report clearly says that a comprehensive review and study of mass transportation networks is needed to be done. The level of skills needed for such a study is not in the domain of the CRISIL report, it says.
If such a study is not in the domain of CRISIL, then on what basis does the ‘Guardian’ minister Mr.Ganesh Naik say that the report this time is ‘foolproof’?

After studying the tender issued by NMMC it further comes to light that CRISIL was never appointed to study the impact of additional FSI at all but to ‘conduct a survey to revise NMMC’s revised development plan prepared in 2007.

This raises the very very important question : If the study was not for the impact of additional FSI then why did the Minister Ganesh Naik mislead the population of Navi Mumbai ?

Activists and town planners now plan to oppose this tooth and nail.
The present regulation requires a committee comprising of the Municipal commissioner, PWD superintending engineer thane, DY director of town planning at Konkan Bhavan and Chief architect and planner of CIDCO to decide whether the building is really dilapidated and dangerous and hence fit for redevelopment.
The politicians now want to randomly change the composition of this committee so that every employee of the committee is a member of the NMMC so that NCP (the party controlling the NMMC) has a free hand in deciding the fate of Navi Mumbai.

On the face of it, it looks like a conspiracy of the builders and politicians to benefit the builders who will get to sell additional flats in the said buildings without spending money to buy the land.

One can also go in for self redevelopment, but how many people have the resources for that is a question.

This battle has just started, but the conspiracy is evident already.

Illegal redevelopment case in JN2 Vashi

A new case of illegal construction has come to light in sector 3,Vashi.In this case it was a case of illegal redevelopment of a CIDCO building (JN 2,bldg 1 and 3) in Sector 9.
In this case the developer cum architect DG Shah started construction of a tower in place of a CIDCO building without taking the mandatory clearance (NOC) from CIDCO (the owner of all land in Navi Mumbai).The builder has thus violated the DCR (Development control regulations) section 8.6.
The builder also submitted fake and bogus documents to the NMMC town planning dept for obtaining the NOC to start construction,thus cheating the said agency.A case of forgery and cheating will also be applicable on the said developer.All construction permissions thus stand cancelled.A demolition order has also been served to the builder.He has to demolish the building within 30 days or else the Municipal Corporation will demolish it and send the bill to the developer.
Most people think that redevelopment is a cake walk.Sometimes they are misled by the builder who is in a hurry to make a fast buck.They do not realise that Redevelopment of old CIDCO buildings is one of the most difficult propositions.
For a successful redevelopment the said complex has to have a co-op housing society or a flat owners association.Conveyance has to be in the name of the society.All documents and other taxes of the property have to be paid.
Unfortunately,most of the old CIDCO buildings either do not have proper ownership papers,most do not have any housing societies formed,conveyance is almost unheard of,property taxes are not paid for years together etc.
To solve most of these problems requires huge amount of money (to the tune of lakhs).
How many of these occupants are ready to spend that cash is anybody\’s guess since most were allotted at Rs.5000 to Rs.10,000 almost 30 years ago or more.
This is the reason that redevelopment of old CIDCO buildings is almost an impossible concept.

Builder liable after taking token money

In a landmark and in some ways historic judgement, the Maharashtra state consumer disputes redressal commission has ruled that once the builder takes token money and signs on an agreement (it need not be registered), he is liable to complete the deal. The commission also ruled that the law of limitation (passage of substantial time between the offence being committed and the complaint being lodged) will not apply in this case as there is continuing cause of action.
The judge said this in the dispute between Sunita Salunke, Vindhya Ramesh and Vasumathi Krishnan V/s Sheth Developers ltd.
The complainants had given the builder 65,000 each for a 1 bhk flat in 2003.The builder did not execute the agreement of sale and instead sent them letters cancelling the agreements.
In 2007, the women lodged a complaint in the consumer forum asking the builder to execute the agreement and deliver the flats to them.
The builder tried to bluff the court by stating that he had informed the complainants that since the building plans were not sanctioned, he could not accept the booking amount for the flats. He stated that the complainants forced him to accept the payment despite knowing these facts.
The consumer forum passed its order that the builder is liable to handover the possession of the flats after receiving the balance payment as stated in the non executed sale agreement. The order was passed in Sept 2010.
The builder appealed this judgement in the state consumer commission in 2011 but yesterday the commission denied him any relief.
This is an almost unprecedented judgement and should encourage more and more people to bring rogue builders to book for their high handedness.

Sky Properties, Nerul, Navi Mumbai

Address A-1, 7,2, Sneh Co Op Society, Plot no 16, Sector 19a, Nerul, Navi Mumbai 400706
Call Us 9987452642
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Kharghar struggles with garbage collection

The citizens woes in Kharghar continue with the garbage disposal and clean up. CIDCO officials have admitted for the first time that Kharghar has almost become a garbage dump.
It would help to remember that there is no municipal corporation governing Kharghar since it is considered a developing node. Municipal handover will take place once the node of Kharghar is considered \’developed\’ (whatever that means).CIDCO is currently incharge of the node and has outsourced most of the civic responsibilities to private contractors. Builders dumping the excavated mud and soil from their construction sites have added to the mess.
CIDCO has appointed a new garbage collection agency called BBG pvt ltd, which will co-ordinate with the citizens as volunteers to supervise operations. The earlier contractor was M/s Antony Infrastructure pvt ltd. The new contractor will be paid Rs 1062 per ton.
Illegal meat shops in sector 15 have also added to the problem by dumping their \’waste\’ on open grounds.
Besides this, Kharghar has also been facing a problem with the property tax issue. Currently, Kharghar residents are paying taxes to 3 different entities. Cidco, Tehsildar and gram panchayat.
Residents are paying service tax to Cidco, property tax to the gram panchayat and NA (Non Agriculture) tax to the revenue department in this case to the Panvel tehsildar.
Until recently there was no Police station in Kharghar and there were issues with the electric supply in some sectors.

Kalyan-Dombivli illegal building scam assumes horrific proportions

The much talked about Kalyan-Dombivli illegal building scam assumed horrific proportions yesterday when it was revealed that the total number of buildings affected by the scam numbered 1500 and was only destined to go up once the investigations were concluded.

The very fact that more than 1500 buildings were illegally constructed shows the involvement of powerful people right from local MLA\’s to Corporators to underworld to Collectors to Gram panchayat right up to the tehsildar and talati levels.

This is an almost unimaginable scam and possibly the largest in the history of this country and was possibly going on since a few decades if not more.

It is also now emerging that the entire construction was financed by the underworld.
The gangsters involved belong to the Ravi Pujari and Chhota Rajan gangs helped by 2 local MLA\’s.

The total villages involved number more than 40.Some of them are Nandivli, Dawadi, Bhopar, Govali and Azade.The Sarpanch and Upsarpanch played a key role in this scam.

The police has registered 11 FIR\’s in the Manpada police station against 33 individuals.Most of them are \’builders\’. Their names are …..

• Mrityunjay Munni Singh (48),
• Vishal Mrityunjay Singh (22),
• Sunil Baban Gawade (45),
• Sunil Gopal Bodare (35),
• Satyawan Ganpat Kadam (59),
• Ajay Shivram Kolte (42)
• Dheeraj Mhatre.
• Two of the accused – Amit Kumar Singh and Samir Virani – are absconding.
  Two other builders, who are absconding, are related to local MLAs.

Main Conspirators

The police are saying that a NCP leader from Thane and a Navi Mumbai based state Minister are exerting pressure on them to go slow in the case and spare the political people involved in the case.

The police is now revealing how every department they went to for verification of the documents turned them down or refused to give them any information.
It was ultimately an RTI application filed with the district collectors office which replied after 4 months that no Non Agricultural certificates were issued to anyone in that area for the past 4 years !!!

The companies against whom FIR\’s have been registered are…

• Sandeep Bharat Mhatre (Siddhi Vinayak Corporation)
• Ravindra K Mhatre (Saiees Construction)
• Santosh Dubey and Nitendra Dubey (Goodwill Construction)
• Amit Kumar Singh (Vinayak Construction)
• Vishal Singh and Shivraj Singh (Shiv Kala Construction)
• The architects of the buildings.

Overall, 27 villages in Dombivli and 13 in Kalyan have been engulfed by the scam.

This is by far the biggest ever housing scam in the Country so far.

The pictures of the main conspirators are given above.