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

  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,...

MSEDCL leaves SNDL employees in dark on Diwali

16-10-19
Around 600 employees of the bankrupt Spanco Nagpur Discom Ltd were left in the dark on Diwali after the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (MSEDCL) failed to pay their salary dues, despite its commitment that their dues will be cleared within a month.
The SNDL employees on Wednesday protested in the office of SNDL for the salary and dues.  Out of 600 employees, around 150 were on rolls including Department heads and Sub-Heads and 450 others. After the MSEDCL took over the operations, Energy Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule, MSEDCL’s MD Operations Dinesh Saboo and others had made a statement in the press conference that that salaries would be paid on time to the employees and they would be absorbed in Class III category on contract. 
However, since the takeover and parallel operations, salaries of SNDL employees had never came on time. Last month, the salary for August 2019 was credited into accounts on 13 th of September 2019 and dues of the employees are yet to settled by SNDL and MSEDCL. 
A SNDL employee said that its become difficult to live in the Metro City without salaries. “I am unable to the pay fees of my school going children and we not finding any future of our family as MSEDCL have not yet absorbed us,” he said. He further said that the worst part is that neither SNDL nor MSEDCL is ready to give anything in writing such as what would be the final amount payable, what benefits are being given on separation. When the employees met SNDL Business Head Sonal Khurana, he denied any information about salaries and said that MSEDCL is "sitting over it".



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