Bombay HC asks civic workers to return bonuses, clear debris near Mithi

Thankfully, a non-strike. “A flash strike called by taxi drivers at the international and domestic airports on Friday morning, fizzled out within two hours. They were protesting against the decision to allow private or long-distance taxi operators to operate from the prepaid taxi stand at the domestic airport. To avoid conflict, the Mumbai-Pune Taxi Owners’ Association, which was scheduled to inaugurate its domestic airport to Pune service on Friday, opened a separate counter,” reports Hindustan Times .

And this strike was an expensive one. According to the Times of India, over 30,000 employees of the BMC who went on a two-day strike paralysing in September, would have to return the Diwali bonus given to them. Ruling that “wrongdoers” cannot be shown as rewarded. “…the Bombay High Court on Friday set aside an industrial tribunal’s order directing the corporation to pay a bonus of Rs 11,000 each to the BMC staff owing allegiance to the Sharad Rao-led Mumbai Municipal Mazdoor Union,” according to Times of India .

Another instance when the BMC needs the court to step in. “The Bombay High Court today directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to clear the debris from a nullah near the Mithi River in the city within ten days. The Bombay high court was hearing a PIL filed by activist Jagdish Gandhi, who sought clearing of encroachment from the river. The division bench of chief justice Mohit Shah and Justice Roshan Dalvi directed the corporation to clear the nullah and also asked the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to consider construction of two 250 meter-long walls,” says CNN-IBN .

Will the court step in here? “The last three years has seen two major infrastructure projects — the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link and the Worli Haji Ali Sea Link — being stalled by bureaucratic apathy displayed by the state body overseeing their construction. In the case of the sea link, the reluctance of Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) to address concerns of Reliance Infrastructure, as well as the contractor’s refusal to accept MSRDC’s promises on face value, has delayed the construction of the sea link extension to Haji Ali, which would have cut down the hour-long ride from Bandra to Worli through 27 signals to a 13-minute zip,” reports Hindustan Times .

This is not a strike, but it still brings things to a standstill. “There seem to be endless hurdles for Mumbai’s first metro rail. The Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar route, slated to be commissioned by November 2012, has one more problem to deal with. The Metro’s construction work has come to a halt near Sarvoday Hospital in Ghatkopar as members of Sarvoday Trust have refused to allow temporary demolition of the hospital’s compound wall for the construction. “Construction work on Golibar Road is suffering since two-and-a-half years due to this issue as authorities have failed to break the deadlock,” sources said,” says The Times of India .

Gillette’s Mumbai-focused advertising campaign gets attention from the Wall Street Journal. “Men’s grooming brand Gillette has initiated an unusual marketing strategy to boost its image in India: It’s leading a movement to “rededicate” the Gateway of India in Mumbai. In full-page advertisements in Indian newspapers, commercials featuring Bollywood stars and on a Facebook page, Gillette is urging Indians to petition the country’s president to dedicate the monument to the “courage and bravery displayed by every Indian—the everyday soldier” rather than the “visiting kings and queens of the past century”,” says the WSJ .

We laughed at this in 2003, and WSJ laughs at it now. “Weren’t we supposed to be Shanghai by now? If my calculations are correct, Mumbai should be more than three quarters of the way, or a little less than two years from transforming into a Chinese megalopolis. But, like most things in India these days, we seem to be running a tad behind schedule. Back in 2003, a report by consultancy firm McKinsey caught the imaginations of more than a few politicians. The ambitiously titled ”Vision Mumbai: Transforming Mumbai Into A World-Class City” suggested an eight-pronged approach, involving investment of $40 billion and the presumed necessary political will and coordination, to turn Mumbai into the next Shanghai, or any other booming Far East Asian city,” writes WSJ .