Latest news with #Reckoner
Hindustan Times
13 hours ago
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Vacate Sassoon Dock, port authority tells fishers, traders
MUMBAI: It's well before dawn but the dock is already alive with handcart-pullers, porters, exporters – and, at the heart of it all, the Koli women. As the early catch is hauled ashore, a pungent aroma settles over the landing sites, anointing the daily ritual. Moments later, several tonnes of seafood slip into a supply chain that starts right here, at Sassoon Dock, on the city's eastern waterfront, in Colaba. Fish on sale at Sassoon dock (Hindustan Times) But the dock will fall eerily silent if the Mumbai Port Authority (MPA) follows through on its verbal ultimatum to fish traders and the fishing community – 'vacate the MPA's godowns within 15 days, or face eviction', they have been told. The threat has triggered alarm for thousands of fishermen, seafood suppliers, shopkeepers and restaurant owners who rely on the sale of fish for their livelihood, not to mention the thousands of workers who populate the supply chain, at the dock and beyond. Matters have boiled over again in a dispute that has dragged on for decades. At the core of the clash is a disagreement between the MPA and the state-run Maharashtra State Fisheries Development Corporation (MFDC) over rental payments for godowns owned by the port authority. While MFDC rents the godowns to seafood processors, the latter have allegedly defaulted on payments to the MPA over Ready Reckoner rates. The confrontation has lasted 30 years. The last serious face-off took place in 2014, when MPA had told godown users to vacate. However, a meeting with ministers in 2015 resulted in a consensus to protect the fishing industry by forming a tripartite agreement among stakeholders. Fisher groups claim that despite that meeting, no formal steps were taken over the next decade. Now, without implementing the promised agreement, the MPA is once again threatening eviction. The directive has led to a grassroots movement to 'Save Sassoon Dock'. Operators of the dock's 80-90 godowns say the move will dismantle an economic ecosystem. For each godown, at least 50 to 100 labourers are employed, rendering them jobless. Ruksana Khan, who owns Harbour Exports and supplies seafood to restaurants, says: 'I've been working here since I was very young. My entire family, including my daughter, is involved. We pay ₹ 15 lakh annually in taxes. We handle 200-300 tonnes of seafood daily. This eviction will render us jobless.' According to Krishna Pawle, president of the Shiv Bharatiya Port Sena, a federation of 14 fisher associations, a shutdown would impact a nationwide supply chain. 'This is not just about Mumbai. Seafood from Sassoon Dock is sent to Gujarat, Kerala, Alibag and beyond. Workers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have been working here for decades. They will all be unemployed,' said Pawle. The dock area also supports communities such as the Banjara Samaj, who specialise in shelling prawns and fish. 'We contribute to foreign exchange earnings,' Pawle added, underlining the broader economic implications of the dock's operations. He says there is no reason the fishing community should be held responsible. 'We were given these godowns to use by the MFDC. If the MPA wants to reclaim them, they should take possession from MFDC. Why are we being dragged into this?' Vasant Bhuchade, president of the Marine Products Auctioneers Association (MPAA), points out that the godowns have been operational before independence, and some families are now in their fourth generation managing them. 'Without these processing units, the seafood supply chain will collapse, and the government will lose crucial revenue.' For now, the MPA is adamant. Despite repeated attempts, a senior official from the MPA was unavailable for comment.
Time of India
30-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Maharashtra CM approves Dharavi master plan
MUMBAI : CM Fadnavis approved the Dharavi redevelopment master plan, after a detailed presentation by SVR Srinivas, Dharavi Redevelopment Project CEO, Wednesday night and stressed that it should preserve the basic commercial identity of Dharavi and its original features. "Everyone who is the original resident of this place should be given a house. Everyone should get justice... though criteria will be different," said Fadnavis, according to a press release. Sources said the first tranche of slum rehabilitation buildings is being constructed on a 28-acre railway land at Mahim. Each eligible household will be given a 350 sq ft home with two toilets. It means, it might be the end of the crowded public toilet blocks, which have been a common feature of Dharavi. A detailed presentation on the Dharavi master plan was made by Dharavi Redevelopment Project CEO and chairman of Navbharat Mega Developers Pvt Ltd (NMDPL), SVR Srinivas, at Sahyadri state guest house. Dy CM Eknath Shinde, who is also the urban development and housing minister, was present for the meeting. Local body elections, including those for BMC, will be held later this year. A press release stated that CM Devendra Fadnavis directed the Dharavi redevelopment to be done in an environmentally friendly manner, integrating its commercial sector. He said priority should be given to the rehabilitation of skilled artisans. "Everyone who is the original resident of this place should be given a house. Everyone in Dharavi should get justice in the rehabilitation project; everyone here will be eligible for this redevelopment project, though criteria will be different," said Fadnavis, as per the press release. Fadnavis emphasised that the concept of Dharavi development project should be implemented by preserving the basic commercial identity of Dharavi and its original features. "For this, the relevant agencies should maintain the necessary coordination. Development works should be carried out in a coordinated manner by taking local people into confidence and preserving the public sentiment," he said. Sources said the govt will decide on the publication of the Dharavi master plan. To make the project "viable", the govt has given a slew of incentives, including the waiver of all premiums besides reimbursement of the state's share of GST for five years. "In a normal slum rehab scheme, the developer has to pay 25% of the Ready Reckoner Rate as a premium for the plot. BMC owns nearly 60% of the land in Dharavi. Since all premiums have been waived for the project, BMC will not earn any revenue for its land," said sources. The govt has also approved the mandatory first use of Dharavi TDR for all redevelopment projects in the city. TDR will not be marked as slum TDR; rather, it will be priced as per the plot on which it is used. This is likely to raise the cost of flats in Mumbai. Further, BMC, in its objections/suggestions to the govt, said mandatory first use of Dharavi (40%) and Slum (20%) TDR will make it difficult to implement the Development Plan - 2034 in terms of acquisition of land for civic infrastructure and public amenities. There has been opposition from several areas within Dharavi to the survey. One of the most well-known sectors, Kumbharwada, has opposed the survey. Congress MP Varsha Gaikwad termed it "the biggest real estate grab in history. A Vinash project to expand Adani's empire in the heart of Mumbai, displacing lakhs of people in the process". "The approval violates provisions of the MRTP, which states that any new draft master plan must be subject to public scrutiny," she said. However, critics of the project said If the survey is not yet complete, how was the master plan prepared? What is the basis for its approval? How can land use planning be determined based on old surveys or incomplete information? Dharavi MLA Jyoti Gaikwad said "Without consultation, without a completed survey, and in total violation of legal process, the CM has approved Adani's so-called master plan for Dharavi; a plan not for development, but for displacement."
Scoop
11-05-2025
- General
- Scoop
Country Life: Devcich Farm Shines A Light On Dalmatian Pioneers
Article – RNZ The story of a pioneering family of Dalmatian immigrants has been kept alive through a cluster of old sheds on the Devcich farm near Thames. , for Country Life Old pack horse saddles slung over beams, a sack of ancient kauri gum and a well-thumbed Ready Reckoner on the counter tell just one chapter of the Devcich Farm story. The items are in the farm's old trading post where, early last century, gum diggers and loggers came to buy stores for their camps up the Kauaeranga Valley on the Coromandel Peninsula. There's also an old blacksmith's forge, a timber mill with sawpit and a winery complete with antique wine-making tools and a pungent aroma of sherry. The Devcich family, originally from Dalmatia, now part of Croatia, farmed here last century. Their legacy, the Devcich Farmstead, is listed as a place of special significance with Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, for 'reflecting significant developments in Dalmatian settlement in early twentieth-century New Zealand'. The sheds, now clustered under a Croatian flag, also reveal their industriousness and range of skills. Simun Devcich arrived in New Zealand from Podgora with his two brothers, Marion Anton and Nicola just after the turn of the 20th century. They worked their way up through gum digging and trading and into farming, buying the block, much bigger then, in 1915. Simun had married another immigrant from Dalmatia, Matija Mercep, in 1913 and eventually took on the farm from his brothers, going from dairy to sheep farming, with his three sons working alongside. Commercial farming has stopped now but Simun's granddaughter, Lorenza Devcich, has restored the buildings and runs a menagerie of coloured sheep, llamas, Highland cattle, emus and assorted exotic birds on the land which remains, with tourists often staying in the old homestead. 'My grandfather and his two brothers, they came from Yugoslavia to escape the army. 'Even for years after, the young men would leave because as soon as they got of age … they would get thrown into the army.' 'My grandfather had about 11 pack horses that he and his boys, my uncles and father, used to pack supplies right up into all the camps at the top end of the valley. 'When they'd first come here, a lot of [the gum diggers followed by loggers] had no money, so a lot of it was on credit. 'He also bought gum and sold it. So, they'd come back here with the gum, and that's how he'd get paid.' Dalmatian immigrants were among New Zealand's wine making pioneers and the Devcich family was producing wine on a small scale from the late 1920s, under their Golden Valley label. Lorenza remembers helping her father Ivan in the wine shed which still houses a wooden fermenting vat and other wine-making tools. 'And there's probably the last standing bottle of sherry up there, still with some sherry in it. It hasn't been touched. And maybe it could even be one of the ones that I bottled, because my job here was the dog's body.' Lorenza still tends to the 80-year-old grape vines today, using 'the worst talkback radio station' she can find to blare out and scare away the birds. 'The sherry and the wine were all made from grapes grown on the property. All the beautiful, big black Albany Surprise, I think it's called, … is still there producing. While the saw mill now stands quiet and the trading post has shut its doors, the farm courtyard is now home to a strutting peacock, brightly coloured pheasants and guinea fowl. Lorenza stores their feed in a shed once used to stable Simun's beloved racehorses, an interest he took up in later life. 'They got fed all the lovely, cooked barley and everything. You'd go into the house, and you'd smell it cooking on the old coal range … all the old farm horses, the pack horses and everything else, just lucky if they got thrown some hay.' She has somewhat sad memories of Simun. 'He got kicked in the stomach by a racehorse and ruptured his stomach, and he survived that, but then not long after, he had a stroke. 'I used to love sitting down talking to him, but when I'd start talking to him, get him to tell me the history, he'd get upset and start crying.' He died in 1971, once a strong active man and very much the 'boss' in his day, and one of the pioneers of the valley, Lorenza said.
