Tendulkar pays penalty, Meru cabs continue strike

The law is equal for all; Sachin Tendulkar discovered that when the BMC decided, he had to pay a fine for ‘occupying’ his house before he had an occupation certificate, reports Indian Express.  “Sachin Tendulkar has paid a fine of Rs 4.35 lakh to the BMC for performing vaastu puja at his new five-storey bungalow without having the occupancy certificate (OC). “He paid the amount after we issued a notice seeking recovery of Rs 4.35 lakh penalty as illegal occupancy charge. We have issued the OC to Sachin,” a BMC official said on Thursday,” reported the paper. While it was bad news for Sachin, it was good news for builders. “Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Thursday approved an additional 0.33 FSI in the suburbs of Mumbai, a long-standing demand from developers and a move that was first initiated in 2008 before being challenged in court. Developers will be able to avail the additional FSI, which now takes the FSI in Mumbai’s suburbs to 1.33, on payment of a premium,” reported Indian Express. The move is expected to add Rs. 200 crore to the government’s coffers. [caption id=“attachment_113442” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The villa has been reconstructed on a plot that housed a dilapidated bungalow, which Sachin had bought for Rs 39 crore in 2007. Screen grab from ibnlive.com”]  [/caption] While on construction, Hindustan Times says that the state will not ‘wait’ for the central housing regulatory bill, which will take time, but will reinforce the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act to include a Regulator. The proposed bill will be tabled in the winter session of the Assembly, which begins on 12 December. Commuters on the Central line continued to suffer, says The Times of India. “Thousands of passengers were left stranded on Thursday as Central Railway (CR) services were disrupted for the fourth successive day. This time, a pantograph of the Nagpur-Mumbai Sewagram Express got entangled with overhead equipment (OHE) wires near Vikhroli at 11.55 am. It took nearly an hour to rectify the problem and several long distance and suburban trains were affected,” the paper says. Meru continued to fail to find a breakthrough in the stand-off with their drivers, as 1700 drivers stayed away from work on Thursday as well, says the Hindustan Times. Another strike, as nurses at the Asian Heart Institute struck work for the second day, protesting unfair working conditions. Be careful this Diwali, as those who break the noise pollution limits could go to jail, reports Hindustan Times. Even as Team Anna moves from one internal dispute to another, the fledgling Mumbai 227 has its first problems. Says The Times of India, “Mumbai 227, a platform launched earlier this month to put up independent candidates for civic polls in February 2012, has come apart with Adolf D’Souza, the city’s first independent citizen corporator, quitting it. D’Souza on Saturday will launch his own ‘Mumbai Nagriksatta.com - a Citizens’ Consensus Candidates Movement’. D’Souza said he was forced to quit because of lack of consensus on basic issues. “The Mumbai 227 team does not fit our ideology of work ethics.”