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A Village Burnt Overnight: Tears, Loss and Survival in Dhamangaon Blaze

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  Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
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Power tariff hike: Government should roll back

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Madhav Bhandari

By Dheeraj Fartode
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state spokesperson Madhav Bhandari, on Thursday, slammed Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) for allowing power tariff hike and ignoring consumer-related issues. “State Government should intervene and roll back the tariff hike,” he said. 

Addressing a press conference at BJP’s Vidarbha office here, Bhandari said that Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) was issuing inflated bills to consumers to compensate for losses. “As MSEDCL officers are involved in corruption, they are issuing inflated bills to consumers to compensate for losses inflicted by their corruption. The Government should book MSEDCL officers in this regard,” he said. 

Already, BJP has announced support to power consumers’ agitation, Bhandari said. BJP workers will launch agitation against proposed tariff hike across the State. “Party workers will torch power bills during the agitation and BJP State chief Devendra Fadnavis, Leader of Opposition (Legislative Council) Vinod Tawde will lead the agitation at Nashik on Friday,” he added. 

Power tariff are the highest in Maharashtra than in any other state in India. This is ultimately forcing industries to shut down, claimed Bhandari. He slammed the ruling Congress-NCP Government for cost escalation of more than Rs 9,600 crore in power projects. The cost escalation in power sector is much higher than that in case of irrigation projects. “It is a bigger scam. BJP will soon come up with details about this. The officers and politicians are overlooking mismanagement in power sector and shielding erring officials,” he alleged. Corruption by officials is responsible for the State’s poor performance in power sector, he said. 

A delegation of senior leaders of BJP had met Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and demanded cancellation of proposed tariff hike, Bhandari told reporters. Accusing the MSEDCL officials of furnishing fudged information to the Government, he demanded audit of agricultural pumps. 
State spokesperson of BJP Girish Vyas, Pramod Pendke, and Chandan Goswami were present at the press conference. 

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