CM's office gutted in Mantralaya fire, 3 killed, 16 injured

June 21, 2012

killed

Mumbai, June 21: A devastating fire in the Maharashtra government secretariat, including offices of the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister, today left three persons dead and 16 injured and destroyed large number of files, raising questions on whether any sabotage was the cause.

Fire brigade officials said two bodies were recovered from the sixth floor of the seven-storey 'Mantralaya'. While one body was found in the committee room of the Deputy CM Ajit Pawar's office, another was found in the nearby waiting hall.

The fire, which erupted at around 2.45 pm and was still raging late tonight, is believed to have resulted in the destruction of files in several departments including that of Urban Development which is in the eye of the Adarsh housing scam involving several top politicians, bureaucrats and ex-army officials.

While announcing an inquiry by the Crime Branch into the fire, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said there were backup files on being asked whether important documents had been lost in the fire. He said that 3.18 crore pages from 2.27 lakh files were scanned and thus safe.

CBI also sought to allay apprehensions about files on Adarsh scam being destroyed, saying they have copies of all the relevant documents.

"We had taken all documents required as part of investigations from the state government last year itself soon after registration of the FIR. Even hard drives from the computers in various departments like the Urban Development department were seized by us last year," a senior CBI officer said. Asked by reporters whether it could be an act of sabotage, the Chief Minister said, "We don't want to jump to any conclusion. The Crime Branch will probe the incident."

The BJP wanted the sabotage angle to be probed. "We need the truth to come out and justice to be delivered to those widows of Kargil, for whom that land was allotted," BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said.

The fire was first noticed on the fourth floor near the office of Tribal Welfare Minister Babanrao Pachpute, soon spreading over to the upper floors, aided by the sea breeze. The fourth floor also houses the urban development department.

The fire spread to the fifth and sixth floors in the seven-storeyed 'Mantralaya'. Extensive damage was also caused to the offices of CM and his deuputy on the sixth floor.

According to Relief and Rehabilitation Secretary Pravin Pardeshi, 65 people trapped on the fifth and sixth floor were evacuated by the fire-fighters.

Two helicopters of the Indian Navy were pressed into service to evacuate those trapped inside the building but returned without any success as nobody could be found on the terrace of the building in south Mumbai.

Contingents of the anti-terror force--Force One and Quick Response Teams of Mumbai police assisted the fire brigade in trying to bring the blaze under control.

Pardeshi said nearly 3000 government employees and as many visitors were removed safely after the blaze started.

Relief and rehabilitation Minister Patangrao Kadam admitted that the government had never anticipated such a major fire at the seat of Maharashtra administration and added that the damage caused to the building would be assessed soon.

Chavan, Pawar and Home Minister R R Patil supervised the rescue efforts.

Pardeshi said the fire was first noticed in an electrical fuse and soon a general alarm was sounded across Mantralaya asking people to rush out.

By 3 pm everybody, barring the 65 trapped due to "ballooning" of the smoke, had been evacuated, he said.

Those hospitalised included Chief Minister's Public Relations Officer Satish Lalit, PROs in Deputy CM's office Vishal Dhage and Sanjay Deshmukh and state Home Minister's PRO Kishore Gangurde. All of them had inhaled the smoke, he said.

Electric supply to the building was stopped.

"Video recording of the entire buildings will take place. Senior officials, including secretaries, will inspect the damage," the chief minister said.

No official work will be carried out in Mantralaya tomorrow, and all meetings scheduled have been cancelled, he said.

Meanwhile, a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) official said that fire brigade received the first call informing about the blaze at 2:46 PM, following which 3 fire engines, 2 water tankers, and an ambulance were rushed to the spot.

The injured persons have been admitted to various hospitals, including 11 at JJ and St George, 3 at G T and 2 at Nair hospital.

Some of them have suffered suffocation, while others have sustained minor injuries to hands and legs, J J Hospital dean Dr T P Lahane said.

There were around 2,500 Mantralaya staffers in the building, apart from around 2,000 visitors when the fire broke out, a Mantralaya official said.

The Mantralaya building typically houses around 8,000 employees on a normal working day.

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News Network
July 14,2020

New Delhi, Jul 14: India's COVID-19 tally breached the 9 lakh mark as 28,498 new coronavirus cases were reported in the last 24 hours, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Tuesday.

As per the Health Ministry, there are a total of 9,06,752 coronavirus cases in the country of which 3,11,565 patients are active cases.

5,71,459 patients have been cured/discharged while one patient has been migrated, the Ministry informed further.

553 more deaths due to COVID-19 were reported in the last 24 hours in the country, taking the number of patients succumbing to the virus to 23,727.

The Centre further informed that India's recovery rate from COVID-19 stands at 63.02 per cent while the recoveries and deaths ratio stood at 96.01 per cent and 3.99 per cent respectively.

As per the Ministry, Maharashtra -- the worst-affected state from the infection -- has a total of 2,60,924 COVID-19 cases and 10,482 fatalities. While Tamil Nadu has a tally of 1,42,798 cases and 2,032 deaths due to COVID-19.

Delhi has reported a total of 1,13,740 cases and 3,411 deaths due to COVID-19.

As per the information provided by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) 1,20,92,503 samples have been tested for COVID-19 till July 13, of these 2,86,247 samples were tested on Monday.

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News Network
February 2,2020

Feb 2: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second budget in seven months disappointed investors who were hoping for big-bang stimulus to revive growth in Asia’s third-largest economy.

The fiscal plan -- delivered by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday -- proposed tax cuts for individuals and wider deficit targets but failed to provide specific steps to fix a struggling financial sector, improve infrastructure and create jobs. Stocks slumped as a proposal to scrap the dividend distribution tax for companies failed to impress investors.

"Far from being a game changer, the budget provides little in terms of short-term growth stimulus,” said Priyanka Kishore, head of India and South East Asia economics at Oxford Economics Ltd. in Singapore. “While income tax cuts will provide some relief on the consumption front, the multiplier effect is low and the overall stance of the budget is not expansionary."

India has gone from being the world’s fastest-growing major economy three years ago, expanding at 8%, to posting its weakest performance in more than a decade this fiscal year, estimated at 5%.

While the government has taken a number of steps in recent months to spur growth, they’ve fallen short of spurring demand in the consumption-driven economy. Saturday’s budget just added to the glum sentiment.

Okay Budget

“It’s an okay budget but not firing on all cylinders that the market was hoping for,” said Andrew Holland, chief executive officer at Avendus Capital Alternate Strategies in Mumbai.

The government had limited scope for a large stimulus given a huge shortfall in revenues in the current year. The slippage induced Sitharaman to invoke a never-used provision in fiscal laws, allowing the government to exceed the budget gap by 0.5 percentage points. The result: the deficit for the year ending March was widened to 3.8% of gross domestic product from a planned 3.3%.

On Friday, India’s chief economic adviser Krishnamurthy Subramanian said reviving economic growth was an “urgent priority” and deficit goals could be relaxed to achieve that. The adviser’s Economic Survey estimated growth will rebound to 6%-6.5% in the year starting April.

The fiscal gap will narrow to 3.5% next year, as the government budgeted for gross market borrowing to rise marginally to 7.8 trillion rupees from 7.1 trillion rupees in the current year. A plan to earn 2.1 trillion rupees by selling state-owned assets in the year starting April will also help plug the deficit.

Total spending in the coming fiscal year will increase to 30.4 trillion rupees, representing a 13% increase from the current year’s budget, according to latest data.

Key highlights from the budget:

* Tax on annual income up to 1.25 million rupees pared, with riders

* Dividend distribution tax to be levied on investors, instead of companies

* Farm sector budget raised 28%, transport infrastructure gets 7% more

* Spending on education raised 5%

* Fertilizer subsidy cut 10%

Analysts said the muted spending plan to keep the deficit in check will lead to more downside risks to growth in the coming months.

“It is very doubtful that the increase in expenditure will push demand much,” Chakravarthy Rangarajan, former governor at the Reserve Bank of India told BloombergQuint, adding that achieving next year’s budget deficit goal of 3.5% of GDP was doubtful.

With the government sticking to a conservative fiscal path, the focus will now turn to central bank, which is set to review monetary policy on Feb. 6. Given inflation has surged to a five-year high of 7.35%, the RBI is unlikely to lower interest rates.

What Bloomberg’s Economists Say:

The burden of recovery now falls solely on the Reserve Bank of India. With inflation breaching RBI’s target at present, any rate cuts by the central bank are likely to be delayed and contingent upon inflation falling below the upper end of its 2%-6% target range.

-- Abhishek Gupta, India economist

Governor Shaktikanta Das may instead focus on unconventional policy tools such as the Federal Reserve-style Operation Twist -- buying long-end debt while selling short-tenor bonds -- to keep borrowing costs down.

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Agencies
June 16,2020

As the Indian workforce navigates a shrinking job market in lockdown times, two in five professionals believe that the number of jobs and scheduled interviews will decrease in the next two weeks, a new LinkedIn survey said on Tuesday.

The news comes as bittersweet for Indian professionals as more than one in three stated they will now spend more time working on their resumes and preparing for interviews.

Professionals from healthcare, manufacturing and corporate service industries anticipate a decrease in personal spending and personal investments in the next six months, according to the findings of the fortnightly LinkedIn Workforce Confidence Index based on responses from 2,903 professionals in the country.

This findings showed that while India's overall confidence remains steady, the country's confidence in jobs is beginning to trend downward.

However, employees at large enterprises (firms with over 10,000 workers) are more confident about the future of their employers when compared to their peers from mid-market and SMB companies.

The findings showed that 41 % of enterprise professionals think their companies will do better in the next six months, while 63 % think their companies will be better off one year from now.

However, "the enterprise professionals are least confident about the future of their jobs, finances and careers, when compared to their SMB and mid-market peers".

The findings showed that 52 % of healthcare, 48% of corporate services, and 41 % of manufacturing professionals anticipate a decrease in investments in the next 6 months.

Over the past three months, many organizations have shifted to a remote working model to circumvent the pandemic and ensure business continuity.

Three in five marketing professionals feel confident about being effective when working remotely, joined by more than half of project management and engineering professionals, who are also confident about the effectiveness of remote working.

In contrast to this optimism, only 39 % of HR, 36% of finance, and 31 % of education professionals think they would be effective when working remotely, said the survey.

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