Kartik Lokhande's blog

Environment Status Report of every district till 2020 * Maharashtra Environment Department issues draft of Vision-2020, and invites suggestions/objections of people till August 15 Staff Reporter If everything goes well, every district in Maharashtra will have its Environment Status Report (ESR) prepared by the year 2020. Again, if everything goes well, these ESRs will provide the basis for chalking out time-bound action plan considering climate change. Finding it difficult to believe? But, these are the things, apart from many others, envisioned in the State Environment Department’s draft Vision-2020 document. The document has been prepared recently by the department to define the course of action after integrating various components including different laws and schemes, towards a sustainable environmental status for the State. The document focuses on 20 major areas in which action is proposed to be taken by the year 2020. The department has placed the draft docum

Now, State and district-level authorities to look into complaints against cops Staff Reporter If you have any complaint against police officers, you may not have to go to courts or Human Rights Commissions at state or national level. Now, you can lodge complaints against them with a special independent authority at state as well as district levels. Home Department of Maharashtra Government has constituted Police Complaints Authority at state and district levels. These authorities have been constituted subsequent to the directions of the Supreme Court in a petition. The Apex court had sought new Police Act to be put in place at national as well as state levels, or make appropriate changes till the new law was enacted. Accordingly, till ‘appropriate changes’ are made to Maharashtra Police Act, 1951, the Home Department has decided to initiate various steps as per the Supreme Court directions. One such step is constitution of State and district level Police Complaints

Maharashtra's conviction rate declines from 34.5% to 9.4% in 19 years! By Kartik Lokhande For the past few years, poor conviction rate in Maharashtra has attracted attention and criticism of the people. Yet, the rate of conviction has not touched double digit for past five years. In fact, to hide this failure in securing in serious offences, the Government has done a smart jugglery of quoting ‘conviction rate in all crimes’ in internal reports instead of quoting conviction rate in ‘IPC crimes’. If one takes a look at the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reports since 1994, that is, a span of 19 years, it becomes clear that the conviction rate in IPC crimes has nosedived from 34.5 per cent in 1994 to mere 9.4 per cent in 2012. Actually, the data shows that the conviction rate dipped steadily, irrespective of which party was in power. According to sources in Police Department, this was because of a variety of reasons including witnesses turning hostile, poor investigat

Water water everywhere, not a drop to drink. Why? Staff Reporter Nagpur has got nine major water bodies, at least six ponds, two rivers, and several streams. This is not a finding based on historic records. This is what the latest map of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) shows. The map, prepared as part of disaster management initiative, is an admission that the city has so many water sources. Then, a common Nagpurian is left perplexed as to why the city has to depend upon Pench irrigation project for water supply.  To this seemingly simple question, the answer is not available with the civic authorities. For, over the years, the so-called authorities -- irrespective of names -- have never paid heed to do a long-term planning and execute with in a time-bound programme so that water availability through resources within the city suffice the city’s projected growth in a sustainable manner. For, over the years, one after another all the representatives elected from various nooks and co

DF Govt extends term of SIT on irrigation scam * The committee headed by Dr Madhavrao Chitaley was to submit its report by June 30, has been given extension till December 31 * With the extension, the Government has avoided smartly discussing various aspects related to SIT during monsoon and winter sessions of State Legislature By Kartik Lokhande What will come out of the Government-initiated probe into multi-crore irrigation scam? Taxpayers and betrayed farmers of Maharashtra will have to wait for the answer. As expected, Democratic Front (DF) Government has given an extension of six months to the Special Inquiry Team (SIT) headed by water expert Dr Madhavrao Chitaley. Following the pressure mounted by the opposition parties and media, after ‘The Hitavada’ expose of multi-crore irrigation scam in May last year, DF Government had announced constitution of SIT in December 2012. ‘The Hitavada’ had exposed influential contractors and contractors-turned-politicians of NCP, BJP and t

Published in The Hitavada on June 13, 2013  Upper Wardha: 48 years of farmers’ deception * Cost escalation, poor quality work, diversion of water have raised serious questions about utility of the multi-crore irrigation project By Kartik Lokhande Dreams, dreams, and dreams. People of Vidarbha region are first shown dreams of various irrigation projects. Then, there are long delays on part of various Government machineries. Finally, when the dreams are ‘realised’, policy decisions are taken at the level of the Government and water from these projects is diverted to non-agricultural purposes, leaving the farmers high and dry in rainfed region. Though there are several such cases in the region, the case in point now is Upper Wardha irrigation project. Why this project? Because, despite cry of the farmers for long, it has caught attention of politicians only of late. The project will be in news for next two days as the main opposition party in Maharashtra -- Bharatiya Janata P

Funds for Vidarbha never diverted: Tatkare (Published in The Hitavada CityLine on July 7, 2013) * Water storage Gosikhurd project to be built up to 242 metres this year * Proposals for revised administrative approval to 45 works from Vidarbha pending before State Cabinet Staff Reporter Under fire over diversion of funds meant for irrigation development in Vidarbha region to other parts of Maharashtra over the years, Water Resources Minister Sunil Tatkare said, “This has never happened. Vidarbha’s funds were never diverted, and will not be diverted.” “I am stating this as Water Resources Minister of Maharashtra,” said a visibly irked Tatkare when he was asked about diversion of Vidarbha funds to Rest of Maharashtra. Adv Madhukar Kimmatkar, Expert Member of Vidarbha Statutory Development Board (VSDB), had pointed out some time ago that funds to the tune of Rs 1 lakh crore were diverted from Vidarbha to Western Maharashtra in violation of Governor’s directives over last 16 years.

Non-submission of CAF: TRAI to deactivate cable TV services from today * Extended deadline for submission of Consumer Application Forms ends today Staff Reporter If your local cable operator (LCO) did not get Consumer Application Form (CAF) filled up from you and submit the same to the Revenue Department, your television set may go blank as set top box (STB) at your household will be disabled from Wednesday. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which had extended the deadline for submission of CAF from June 25 to July 10, will deactivate cable TV services on expiry of extended deadline today. According to S G Gautam, Deputy Commissioner (Entertainment Duty), TRAI will deactivate services of multi-system operators (MSOs) who did not submit CAF. ‘The Hitavada’ had first published the report in this regard on June 12, when TRAI had first issued the directive with June 25 as deadline. As per the TRAI directive, it was made mandatory for all cable TV subscribers to submit CAF t

Kakodkar Committee to submit report on GM crops this month Padma Vibhushan Dr Anil Kakodkar Staff Reporter Maharashtra Government’s committee on allowing field tests to genetically modified (GM) crops, headed by eminent nuclear scientist Padma Vibhushan Dr Anil Kakodkar, is finalising its report. The panel is expected to submit its report to the Government this month. According to Umakant Dangat, Agriculture Commissioner, the committee has prepared its draft. It conducted meetings including one at Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) in Nagpur in the month of May. “The process of finalising minutes of the meetings and compiling the consultations into a report form, is under progress. By the end of this month, the report will be submitted to the Government,” he told ‘The Hitavada’. Asked about general tone and tenor of the consultations held so far, Dangat said that it would come out only in the report. Once the report was submitted to it, the Government would take appr

‘Wounds, trauma will take time to heal...’ * Nagpur lad Nilesh Bharne, SP (Disaster Control) in Uttarakhand, saw the devastation in Kedarnath and came to conclusion that mammoth task lay ahead By Kartik Lokhande  “Devastation is massive. Trauma is too deep to fathom. Roads might be constructed in some time. What about the scars on hearts and minds? The wounds and trauma will take time to heal,” feels Nilesh Bharne, an IPS officer posted in Uttarakhand. Bharne, who hails from Nagpur city, is Superintendent of Police (Disaster Control) in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand. He saw it all -- destroyed landscape, slush-covered plains, raging rivers, semi-decomposed bodies, mass cremations, battered infrastructure, horrifying scenes of traumatised people waving frantically to get evacuated to safer places. He was entrusted with making arrangements for the most difficult task in the entire relief and rescue operations -- mass cremations of people at Kedarnath. Nilesh Bharne, SP (Disaster Co

Offering ‘Hope’, providing ‘Rahat’ Racing against time, battling inclement weather, overcoming the odds, scaling new heights of performance, and displaying synergy of the highest order in carrying out the world’s largest-scale relief and rescue operations in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh; the Armed Forces of the country showed it once again why are they respected and admired so much. While rescuing stranded pilgrims, the ‘men in uniform’ also had their moments of elation and sadness. While they felt good about helping out fellow countrymen, they also had lump in the throat to discover large-scale loss of lives during their missions into the devastated region of Kedarnath. ‘The Hitavada’ Chief Reporter Kartik Lokhande takes a look at the mammoth operations carried out by the Armed Forces in flood-ravaged territory. We owe it to the lives of our people whom we have lost, that we sustain the mission and complete it successfully. Our rotors won’t stop working. -- Air C