Installation of Reliance Infra electric cabin at Shastri Nagar stalled

In our last week issue, we had carried a front page story 'Shastri Nagar residents protest against illegal electric cabin'. The residents protest have been fulfilled as Reliance Infrastructure have heeded to their demand and have assured that they will not set up a transformer Cabin at the illegal and disputed site. With the efforts of Santacruz Patrika and local corporator Alice Therattil, Reliance Infrastructure Deputy General Manager has assured that they will reinstate the dugged premises and constructed garbage bin to the original level without any delay. They further assured that if the area needs genuinely a substation a proper location may be suggested or Reliance Infrastructure would locate a suitable place which will not create any hindrances or inconvenience to the residents of the area. Further, they have assured that they would carry out work only after complying with all the legal requirements.

During the past few months it is alleged that a political party worker has been on a signature campaign from residents of Shastri Nagar chawls towards construction of unauthorized proposed electric cabin work behind Mohammadi Masjid, Shastri Nagar, Kalina. The construction of a proposed unauthorized electric cabin is alleged to take place after demolishing garbage dustbin constructed by Mahanagar Palika's Fund at Shastrinagar.  There are three public toilets having no .164, 165, 166 on the surrounding and their entrance has been blocked.  There is no vehicle entry passage near this proposed electric cabin and serious complaints have been received from the nearby public residents.

Further, the construction of illegal electric cabin is extremely hazardous as if any fire or explosion takes place the entire toilets will be blown up and a  serious  fear has came into the minds of  surrounding residents. To stop the unauthorized work Alice Therattil had informed N.W. Lalwaney, Asst. Municipal Commissioner, H/E Ward who expressed his unawareness of the permission for the above mentioned work.  Thereafter, Alice informed Mr. J.S. Gheagadmal, A/E Maintenance and Mr. Anirao, Sub Engineer Maintenance and learned that they too were not aware of this illegal work. Further, she had also corresponded with Sudhir Naik, DMC Zone III and Krishna Shenoy, Gen. Manager, Reliance Infrastructure Ltd who have finally initiated action against the construction of illegal transformer cabin.

But while surveying the site and speaking to a cross section of residents they told Santacruz Patrika, “There is already an electric transformer a few metres away and we do not understand the need of installing another electric transformer in front of the toilets.” Another resident in disgust admitted, “It was sometime ago BJP workers of our area made us participate in a protest rally against Reliance Infrastructure inflated electric bills. But to our dismay so far nothing has materialized and on the contrary after the BJP protests the electric bills instead of reducing is on the increase. We innocent have been fooled.”

Finally, all voiced their anger and said, “When we innocent are taken by BJP workers to vent our protest against inflated electric bills, why install another gigantic transformer near our toilets and put us in danger and inconvenience.” Lastly, with the efforts of Santacruz Patrika, Corporator Alice Therattil and co-operation of Reliance Infrastructure and BMC the work of installing an unauthorized Transformer cabin has been finally stalled.