Girish's Blog

It is a well known fact – though spoken in hushed tones – that illegal construction in Mumbai goes on with the complete blessings of the political class and the underworld financiers. The need to post this blog has arisen with the Honorable Bombay High Court ordering the demolition of 17 illegal floors of a twenty four storey structure built at Kandivali. This building had the BMC approval for only seven floors but went on to construct seventeen additional floors. This raises a lot of questions which need to be answered and which I feel the Honorable High Court should also take into account for passing strictures against those responsible for whatever has transpired. I am sure that the BMC, the ward officer, the executive engineer at the ward were fully aware that illegal construction activity was going on – why was it not stopped at the stage when the 8th floor was being constructed? Why did the concerned officials wait till seventeen more floors were built – I am sure they were not b...

This post will probably highlight the state of our roads, the apathy of the BMC, the quality of drivers to whom driving licenses are given, all of which leads to traffic congestion and in many cases road rage. This morning the traffic was particularly bad on the way to office, and the car had not moved from 9.05am to 9.20am on the road approaching the traffic signal on the Andheri Kurla Road near Hotel Kohinoor International, so I decided to walk the half a kilometer or so to office. As I weaved my way through the cars and motorbikes zigzagging between cars and the pedestrians, I realized the reason for the massive traffic jam. There was a huge depression on the Andheri-Kurla road at the traffic junction with water seeping out of some damaged underground pipeline. The Versova-Ghatkopar metro is being constructed on this stretch which may have contributed to the damage. The BMC “constructs” roads to perpetuate their right to make money through contractors for road repairs, hence shoddy ...