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,...
A day after Sachin Kurve, District Collector, conducted inspection at City Survey Office No 2 that revealed certain irregularities in functioning, the staffers at the said office staged demonstrations against the inspection on Friday.
Kurve and Ravindra Kumbhare, Resident Deputy Collector, conducted inspection at City Survey Office No 2 on Thursday and were to continue inspection on Friday too. The inspection was conducted following the complaints that touts were active in the said office and that there were irregularities. Kurve had started a special counter at Setu Kendra in Collectorate premises to accept and dispose of applications relating to mutation of property records. This had affected the touts active in City Survey Offices in the city. Conducting inspection of City Survey Office No 2 ruffled many a feather in the said office.
During inspection, Kurve found that not even 10 per cent of the applications received through Setu Kendra were disposed of at the said office. He blasted Vinayak Thakre, In-charge of the City Survey Office No 2, and other staffers at the said office. He is learnt to have warned the employees of appropriate action for delay in disposal of applications received.
On Friday, Kurve called for documents of the said office for verification. This irked the employees of City Survey Office No 2, and they staged demonstrations against the action. They wore black badges and raised slogans against District Collector. They also demanded to close down the special counter for mutation of records, started at Setu Kendra.
Collector is learnt to have issued a show cause notice to Thakre regarding pendency of applications. According to sources, in Mouza Sakkardara, a total of 88 applications for mutation were received at Setu Kendra counter. However, only one was disposed of by City Survey Office No 2. In Mouza Babulkheda, not a single of several applications received was disposed of as the clerk concerned was on ‘leave without authorisation’. Some more irregularities were found during inspection, and the Collector is compiling a report of the same, it is learnt.
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