Editorial

Action for good G overnance &N etworking inIndia

November 2019 > A MonthlyNewsletter > For private circulation only

Forward This To All - And All Forward - Together

Success of democracy

o r t h e s u c c e s s o f Fdemocracy in the true sense, we need a good sound government as well as a strong opposition to check mate the government and make it accountable. Unfortunately, in the general elections held in May 2019, resulted in too strong government with two thirds majority, but a very weak opposition. For the assembly elections held recently, the NDA alliance went ahead with a good c a m p a i g n w i t h o v e r -confidence of getting again two third majority. However, after t h e d r u b b i n g a n d w i t h leadership problem at the top, the Congress party's campaign was very low with no central leaders helping. In fact, Congress gave up even before the elections. But Sharad Pawar of NCP did not let go the fight easily. Sharad Pawar, 78 years old, a c a n c e r s u r v i v o r, s i n g l e handedly prevented the NDA alliance from running away with the elections and, in the process, gave the state a credible opposition and the congress a new life. In fact, Sharad Pawar addressed rallies of not only NCP but also of the congress party. The icing of the cake was his address at Satara amidst heavy rains but still continued his address on the last day of campaigning. This went viral in social media. He effectively applied brakes in the NDA alliance aim of over 200 seats. Sharad Pawar has thus proved to be the strongest National leader with strong grass roots even in rural areas. In fact, it would not be out of p l a c e i f S o n i a G a n d h i appreciates his capacity and calls him back to the Congress to lead the Party and revive it. But CAN THAT HAPPEN?

All Mumbai MLAs crorepatis

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All 36 MLAs are Crorepatis

17 MLAs have declared cases against themselves

Highest asset Rs.500+ crore Parag Shah, Lowest asset Rs.2 crores+Dilip Lande

17 MLAs graduates and above

18 MLAs Upto 12th pass

All the 36 newly elected MLAs from Mumbai city

and suburbs are crorepatis as p e r a n a l y s i s b y t h e Maharashtra Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). Parag Shah (BJP) from Ghatkopar East has t h e m a x i m u m a s s e t o f Rs.500.62 crores while Dilip Lande (Shiv Sena) f rom Chandivali has the least asset of Rs.2.02 crores. The highest liability of Rs.283 crore is of Mangal Prabhat Lodha (BJP) from Malabar Hill.

Winning Margins

Before

As you will see from the above table, Sunil Rane of BJP from Borivli Contd. on page 4

Map of Mumbai assembly constituencies with names of newly elected MLAs

Varun Singh

2 Mumbai Meri Jaan November 2019

Six tons of newspaper gets converted to notebooks

BMC allows housing societies to penalise residents not segregating waste

Garden Waste Shredding Machine

Swachha Mumbai Abhiyaan

Richa Pinto

n a bid to propagate the Imessage of separating dry and wet waste to every household, office bearers of housing societies are being empowered by the BMC to penalise residents who do not segregate their waste at source. A circular dated September 24 says that the BMC is empowering office-bearers of all housing societies to issue notices to those apartments that do not consistently segregate waste as mandated under the Solid Waste Rules, 2 0 1 6 . “ T h e m a n a g i n g committee shall also pass a r e s o l u t i o n u n d e r t h e Maharashtra co-operative housing society bye laws or relevant rules governing the housing society bye laws and impose a financial penalty on defaulters as per the consensus of members,” it adds. When contacted, BMC officials from the solid waste department said the fines would have to be as per consensus because it would depend on the size of the society and maintenance fees collected from members. These fines can also vary for a s ing le instance and for r e p e a t e d d e f a u l t i n g households. On the need for such a step, Ashok Khaire, Joint Municipal Commissioner, solid waste management, said: “In spite of many requests, campaigns and meetings with citizens, we are not getting segregated waste from a lot of localities. Societies face a challenge as some members are co-operative and others are not. Therefore, if one gives the authority to societies, they can identify those not doing it and act

accordingly.” He reminded citizens that BMC offers a rebate on property tax to societies that segregate their garbage and process wet waste on their premises. Advocate Vinod Sampat, president of the Co-operative Societies Residents and Users Association, said the intention is good, but there is fear that the power may be misused by office-bearers if they have a grievance against any member. “This rule to segregate has been in existence for a long time and the BMC is waking up late in the day it seems,” he said. Corporator Asif Zakeria said the BMC needs to set its own house in order before implementing such rules. “The civic body's dry waste vans do not come for days, prompting regular complaints from housing societies. All these circulars seem to have been drafted only in an attempt to improve the city's ranking in the upcoming Swachh Survekshan,” he said. This year the city's r a n k i n g i n t h e n a t i o n a l cleanliness survey took a major hit as it dropped to 49 from 18 last year. Shyama Kulkarni, AGNI Trustee, welcomed the step, saying the problem of some residents diligently segregating waste and some others refusing to do so despite many requests is common. “Managing committee members should clearly inform the defaulting members that from now on, they would be fined,” she noted.

Si x t o n s a n d more of old

n e w s p a p e r g o t c o n v e r t e d i n t o 5 , 0 0 0 p l u s n o t e b o o k s f o r students from the underpr iv i leged strata of Mumbai. A group of five volunteers and h u n d r e d s o f u n s e e n volunteers collected over six tons of newspaper from various housing societies and individuals of Mumbai. The last book donation was given in Andheri in September. The campaign named 'Donate - A Notebook', was devised earlier this year and from March, Priti Gandhi, one of t h e vo l u nte e rs o f t h e campaign, along with others, s t a r t e d c o l l e c t i n g newspapers that are normally d i s ca rd e d a d ay a f te r publication. Priti Gandhi elaborated that “Donate-A-Notebook is an initiative whereby we collect old newspapers from people across Mumbai and recycle and exchange them for new notebooks to be given free of

cost to underpr iv i leged children. In the last six months we have visited hundreds of homes and collected more than 6 tons of paper." To achieve their goals, the volunteers collaborated not just with individuals, but also with housing societies who donated old newspapers to them en masse regularly. "Recently we have also been approached by educational institutions who want to join hands with us and take it up as a social activity with their students," she said. Through this innovative campaign volunteers have managed to distribute over 5,000 books to students at four different locations in the western suburbs. But they plan to make it a city-wide campaign and are collecting newspapers regularly towards this end.

Volunteers from Donate-A-Notebook on a door-to-door drive

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Ghatkopar society saves 100% in power bills

Badri Chatterjee

An 11-storey apartment complex in Ghatkopar

(East) has been using solar e n e r g y t o p o w e r t h e electricity requirement of its common areas since March,

which has brought down their power bills to zero. Before installing the power plant, Raji Cooperative Housing Society (CHS) used to incur an average expense of

Rs.26,000 per month in their electricity bills. However, after they installed a rooftop solar-powered system in March, now they only pay the basic meter charges, which is Rs.600 (fixed cost). On March 14, the society installed the photovoltaic plant with 68 panels across its 2,200 sq. ft. rooftop area with a capacity of 22.1 kilo-watt power (kwp) for lights across all common areas including the lobby, contd. on Page 3

Mumbai Meri Jaan November 2019 3

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Ghatkopar society saves 100% in power bills

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contd. from Page 2 staircases, streetlights, lifts as well as for the water pumps. Since then, power bills have come down drastically in eight months, reveal the bills shared by the residents. In January, Raji CHS incurred a monthly bill of Rs.26,818, while in February, the society paid Rs.25,794. F o u r m o n t h s a f t e r t h e installation, the bill dropped to Rs.1,220 in July. From August, the society has been incurring a mere Rs.600 (fixed meter cost). “As solar energy has enormous benefits we knew adopting it was the right

choice. After consultation with experts, we realised that there was ample space for this plant, which now entirely covers our electricity requirements,” said Rohit Modi, society member. The society spent Rs.12.5 lakh for the installation of the project and obtained Rs.2.95 lakh covered under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy's (MNRE) subsidy scheme for solar projects. The scheme, however, ended in May, following which the Centre issued a new set of guidelines with revised norms for availing the subsidy benefits for rooftop solar projects.

Bandra school children protest against climate change

Shyama Kulkarni

any of us as adults have Mtalked and discussed climate change, but never permitted it to percolate into our subconscious and take it seriously. I think it was the young Swedish teenager, Greta Thunberg, who opened our eyes and made us realise that we were responsible for not acting immediately. It is our responsibility to save Planet Earth for the next generation. Many cities across the world decided to hold meetings and programmes on climate change with school children. A few of us also decided to hold a programme on the morning of Sunday 6th October, at the Reclamation Promenade, Bandra. We had all the necessary permissions in place, especially from the Bandra Police Station. When some of us organisers reached there earlier, we discovered to our dismay that the police refused to give us permiss ion to ho ld the meeting. This was due to the explosion of protests at Aarey where trees had been felled, leading to protests and a shut-down across the city. I tried to convince the police that we were not going to raise slogans

about Aarey or against any politician but the police insisted that we change the venue from the promenade to a parking lot close by. There were over a hundred students from four schools who came to the protest venue. Unfortunately, with the exams the next day the turnout was low. I started by apologising to them on behalf of my generation for not dealing with this matter much earlier and allowing a climate and ecological crisis to take place. We discussed how they could contribute in their own way by not throwing garbage in the Mithi River, by segregating the garbage at source, by using ecologically friendly Ganpatis, and having visarjans not in the sea, but in small ponds. The students promised to say no to plastics and save water in their homes. The meeting ended with a short prayer to save our planet. The children then lay down on the ground pretending to be dead and said that their generation

would die if they were unable to bring about cl imate change. children and not adults, are mentally nimble and supple enough to accept new ideas and not allow greed and acquisitiveness to cloud their view of the world.Shyama Kulkarni is AGNI's Trustee

Saving planet earthBulu Saldanha

n October 2, 2019, Oapproximately 1000 school children gathered in the premises of Canossa High School, Mahim. There were around 600 children from Canossa High School and around 400 children from St. Michael 's High School , Mahim. Prior to their gathering at Canossa High School they had been briefed about the dire state of our climate and environment where extreme weather events like droughts and floods are becoming more frequent and intense as a result of global warming.

The earth is facing a never-before-challenge from the destructive practices of the human species. The children were told that we need to save Planet Earth. Reference was made to Greta Thunberg who like them is a student but who has got the world to wake up and listen to her plea that young people like her deserve a better future. They were requested to get their parents to enroll as participants in ALMs with a focus on segregating garbage responsibly and making our city clean and healthy. The students prepared very engaging posters with strong messages spelling out the need to protect our environment. “We Deserve A Future”, “We h a v e a S o l u t i o n . S t o p Pollution”, “Save our World. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle”, “When you destroy trees, You destroy OUR FUTURE”, “When adults act like children, children must take action” etc. The students walked with these posters in an orderly and dignified manner through the streets of Mahim making people aware of what we are doing to the climate and the need to change. The rally ended at Reti Bandar. This Rally was organised by AGNI, G/North Ward and The Civic and Political Cell (St. Michael's Church, Mahim). Total cooperation was provided by the Principal of Canossa High School, Sr. Ruth and Sr. Audrey, the Principal and Headmaster of St Michael's High School, Sr. Sugandha and Thomas Netto respectively and the Principal of K.J. Khilnani High School and Jr. College, Ms. Mahima Reheja. The PTA highly appreciated this initiative.Bulu Saldanha is AGNI's co-ordinator G/North ward

Animesh Manek, founder and managing director of Avishakti Rooftop, which installed the project, said that the entire cost of the project is likely to be recovered by 2022. “The residential complex consumes 28,500 units on an average every month. The so lar p lant now he lps generate an average of 31,000 units leading to surplus electricity. Thus, the society is expected to save Rs.4.24 lakh annually in electricity expenses,” said Manek.

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

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agni.central@gmail.comPh: 2416 5956

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Printed atAudumber Press, Wadala

4 Mumbai Meri Jaan November 2019

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AGNI Ward CoordinatorsMMJ

After demolitionfor donation received

in October 2019 from:-Shrikant Soman Rs.1002/=

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Meet Your Candidate event held at Borivli Willie Shirshat

A Meet Your Candidate e v e n t w a s h e l d o n

Saturday, October 12 at St. Pope Paul hall in Borivili. The meeting was organized by the Hindustani Ekta Lok Prajatantra (HELP) affiliated to Church In The City, which in turn, is a part of AGNI's R/N JAAG. The following candidates were present:INC: Arun SawantBJP: Chaudhary Manisha Ashok

MNS: Rajesh G YerunkarBSP: Adv. Harshatai ChowkekarNCP: R H Vishwakarma andINDEPENDANT: D R Pandey The two candidates who did not respond were Mr Andrew Fernandes of Hum Bhartiya Party and Mr M P Jadhav of Sambhaji Brigade Party. The HELP team presented the manifesto of the ward to the candidates. Questions written on slips of paper were given to

the panel of moderators which included D K Kosambe (BDJNM), S h r i k a n t S o m a n ( A G N I ) , Cassendra Viegas and Sushilla Pallicha of HELP. In an interactive session, candidates were questioned about the policies of their parties

towards senior citizens, roads, municipal markets, unemployment, affordable housing and education. The m o d e rato rs u rge d t h e political parties to seek solutions to resolve these

pressing issues as voters in the constituency were living in a state of despair.Willie Shirsat is AGNI's R/N coordinator

Contd. from Page 1constituency won with the highest margin of 95,021 (74.54%) votes, while Dilip Lande of Shv Sena from Chandivali won with the l o w e st m a rg i n o f 4 0 9 (43.74%) votes in Mumbai.

Votes polled The highest votes polled is 1 , 2 3 , 7 1 2 f o r Z e e s h a n Siddique of Congress from Bandra (East) constituency, while the lowest votes polled is38,337 for Asif Zakaria from Bandra (West)

Criminal cases Out of 36 MLAs 17 (nearly 50%) have declared criminal cases against themselves.

Education Mumbai has 2 Post-graduates , 5 Graduate Professionals, 10 Graduates,

th1 Doctorate, while 5 are 12 th

Std. pass, 10 are 10 Standard thpass and 3 are 8 Standard

pass.

Mumbai Analysis Maharashtra AnalysisLAs with criminal cases: MOut of the 285 MLAs

analysed, 176(62%) MLAs have declared criminal cases against themselves. Out of 288 MLAs analysed during Maharashtra Assembly elections in 2014, 165 (57%) MLAs had declared criminal cases against themselves.

MLAs with serious criminal cases: 113(40%) MLAs have declared serious criminal cases in their affidavits. Out of 288 MLAs analysed in Assembly elections in 2014, 115 (40%) MLAs had declared serious criminal cases against themselves. Crorepati MLAs: Out of the 285 newly elected MLAs,264 (93%) are crorepatis. Out of 288 MLAs analysed during Maharashtra 2014 assembly elections, 253 (88%) MLAs were crorepatis.

Average assets: The average of a s s e t s p e r M L A i n t h e Maharashtra 2019 assembly elections is Rs. 22.42 crores. In 2014, the average assets of 288 MLAs analyzed was Rs 10.87 crores. Education Details of MLAs: 117 (41%) MLAs have declared their educational qualification to be

th thbetween 5 pass and 12 pass while 157 (55%) MLAs have declared having an educational qualification of graduate or above.24 (8%) of 288 MLAs are women MMJ

Board of Trustees

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