Maharashtra: The A to Z of 2019

C is for the Coastal Road, a 33.5-km highway along the sea that will connect Nariman Point with Kandivali, a much-needed additional arterial road alongside the Western Express Highway. By the end of 2018, parts of the coast had already been barricaded in anticipation of work. In 2019, protests by fishermen and residents of neighbourhoods that it will directly impact, and litigation led to a stay by the HC. The stay was lifted on December 20 by the Supreme Court and work on the highway resumed at once. The BMC has said it will cost the taxpayer a few additional crores because of the six-month delay.

The Coastal Road project was protested by fisherfolk and residents of neighbourhoods that it will directly impact.

Climate change could lead to large parts of Mumbai and other coastal cities going under the sea, as per a paper in the journal Nature. According to the study by New Jersey-based non-profit Climate Central’s Scott A Kulp and Benjamin H Strauss, Mumbai in 2050 will look a lot like Mumbai in 1700, with the sea reclaiming the landfill that is the base of the city.

D is for disease, which reared its head this monsoon in a particularly nasty way. After unusually heavy rains this monsoon, at least 2,000 Mumbaikars were laid low by dengue fever in just the first fortnight of October. The cases of leptospirosis and malaria also saw a spurt in the post-monsoon months, along with the usual outbreaks of gastroenteritis and other rain-related ailments. Earlier in the season, the civic body conducted three rounds of intensive screening in slums surveying 23.2 lakh houses from July 3 to 5, July 30 to August 1 and August 5 to 7. At least 1.9 lakh people were administered preventive medicine (doxycycline). A large number of them were children and pregnant women, who are at highest risk of getting infected. This had actually helped keep the disease numbers lower in the first half of the monsoon.

Following the PMC Bank scam in September, at least seven depositors died in the months since a cap was imposed on their withdrawals, of causes ranging from cardiac arrest to suicide.

E is for Economic Offences, the PMC Bank scam the biggest of them. In September, the bank’s large loans to the troubled HDIL were being examined by the RBI even as accounts were frozen and lakhs of small depositors found they could not access their own money. By December, a preliminary audit report by the RBI found funds were distributed to the HDIL promoters Sarang and Rakesh Wadhawan in a “casual” manner. The Economic Offences Wing of the police in the last week of Friday filed a nearly 33,000-page chargesheet against managing director Joy Thomas, the bank’s chairman Waryam Singh, former director Surjit Singh Arora and HDIL promoters Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan for causing a loss of Rs 4,700 crore to the bank through loans extended to the HDIL Group. The chargesheet includes statements of 340 witnesses, of whom 90 are investors who lost their savings, 10 are employees of the bank, and five are senior RBI officials. Meanwhile, at least seven depositors of the PMC Bank died in the months since a cap was imposed on their withdrawals, of causes ranging from cardiac arrest to suicide, together a reflection of the trying times some of these families continue to face.

F is for the farmer, who found himself oddly forgotten during the summer election campaign for the Lok Sabha polls, when the then ruling combine’s candidates made “national security” the only issue, derived from the terrorist strike on a CRPF bus in Pulwama killing 40 jawans, and India’s air strike in Balakot inside Pakistan. Coming out of a drought year, credit access and continuing water scarcity were major concerns for rural voters and farmers’ families, but the results suggested that they had put aside their problems and had bought the argument that they needed to vote for a leader who stood for muscular nationalism. The BJP and Shiv Sena, which fought the election as an alliance, won all eight Lok Sabha seats in north Maharashtra and seven of the eight in Marathwada, where the drought was the most acute.

G is for garbage. From 9,600 metric tonnes daily to 7,700 tonnes, the city has managed to reduce how much waste is sent daily to the dumping grounds, but the long term issue of plastic waste that is clogging rivers and nullahs and other water bodies remains a concern. Nudged by Sena scion Aaditya Thackeray, the Sena’s then environment minister Ramdas Kadam ordered a ban on all single use plastic and thermocol products, sending everyone from the average roadside fish vendor to small grocers to garment manufacturers and retailers into a tizzy. Milk pouches will also now require a buyback mechanism and a buyback price printed on them. The move was welcomed by environmentalists and many citizens also switched to cloth and reusable bags for grocery shopping, etc, but the plastic ban has not really taken off, nor has the buyback mechanism.

H is for Hindutva, the word that Shiv Sena did not insist on including in its Common Minimum Programme with its new alliance partners, the Congress and NCP, as it went about forming a government with them. The CMP statement in fact described their alliance as an attempt to form a secular government. Sena chief and CM Uddhav Thackeray defended the omission with some sleight of word, declaring in the Assembly that his Hindutva could never be separated from him, and that it also made him deeply honest, a dig at former CM Devendra Fadnavis who he has accused of lying about the Sena-BJP’s power-sharing talks.

I is for the alleged multi-crore irrigation scam. Seven years after allegations surfaced of extensive irregularities in dam projects, tenders, revised estimates and cost escalations, and then irrigation minister Ajit Pawar had to resign, the scam is back in the news. Soon after being sworn in as deputy chief minister in the Devendra Fadnavis-led government that only lasted 80 hours, Pawar got a clean chit in probes dating back to 2011-12. ACB officials said the timing was dictated only by a calendar of court hearings into two PILs filed in 2012 before the Nagpur bench of the Bombay HC, and was unconnected to his decision to join hands with Fadnavis at the time. According to a statement from the ACB, it had initiated open enquiries into a total of 2,654 tenders of 45 projects of Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation (VIDC), completed open enquiries in 212 tenders out of which FIRs have been registered in 24 cases. Chargesheets have been filed in five cases. Departmental enquiries have been recommended in 28 for administrative lapses and these have been sent to the VIDC over the past year and a half. Forty-five open enquiries had been closed as no offence was disclosed during the enquiry.

Rendered jobless after Jet Airways closed down, several staged agitations that got aggressive after a senior technician, who worked for the airline for 15 years, committed suicide on April 26.

J is for Jet Airways, which abruptly stopped flying in April this year after running into serious financial troubles. It was admitted for insolvency on June 20, after lenders failed to sell the grounded airline. But the 180-day deadline as stipulated under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Act, 2016, for the resolution of the airline also ended on December 16. By late December, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) allowed the resolution professional for Jet Airways to extend the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) of the grounded airline by 90 days. Until April, the airline had over 14,500 employees — 1,500 pilots, 3,000 cabin crew members, and 7,000 ground operations and technical staff. While at least 600-700 pilots and a similar number of cabin crew later joined other domestic airlines, those rendered jobless, staged several agitations in the city that got aggressive after a senior technician, who worked for the airline for 15 years, committed suicide in Nallasopara on April 26.

K is for the King Edward Memorial Hospital where three-month-old Prince, a native of Uttar Pradesh, died due to fire injuries in the intensive care unit after an ECG machine caught fire on November 7. Prince suffered 20 per cent burns on scalp, shoulder and arms. The boy was forced to undergo amputation of hand due to infection four days later. He eventually succumbed to septic shock towards November end. Currently the Bhoiwada police is awaiting report from Veermata Jeejabai Technological Institute on forensic details of the ECG machine to assess how fire was sparked. Prince’s parents have returned to their native village in UP after his cremation.

L is for another loan waiver that will burden the state exchequer further by an estimated Rs 30,000 crore, right on the heels of the Rs 18,000 crore already paid out in the ongoing 2017 loan waiver scheme. This time, the Uddhav Thackeray government capitulated to populism just weeks after taking charge, and approved a farm loan waiver up to Rs 2 lakh per farmer. However, the government resolution says farmers having outstanding loans of more than Rs 2 lakh as on September 30, 2019, will not be eligible for the waiver. The farm loan waiver scheme, named Jyotirao Phule Farmer Loan Waiver Scheme, is likely to benefit around 40 lakh farmers. Several farmers’ leaders and Opposition BJP criticised the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government, saying it has “betrayed” the farmers as a majority of them will not be able to get the benefit of the scheme due to the condition that principal loan along with interest should not exceed Rs 2 lakh. Also, farmers who had availed loans from nationalised, district and cooperative banks as well as cooperative societies will be considered for the scheme.

M is for Mahul, in suburban Mumbai, where residents’ indefinite protest started last October with demands of safe housing and living conditions. About 3,000 families live in Mahul, rehabilitated from various sites as project affected people. With Mahul engulfed by chemical factories and oil refineries, air and water pollution has led to a series of protests by locals. A High Court order directed the BMC to provide rent to residents. With Uddhav Thackeray now the CM, residents are pushing the new government to implement court order.

N is for fugitive diamond jeweller Nirav Modi, who once again hit the headlines after he was spotted in the UK, sporting a moustache and a £10,000 ostrich jacket, for the first time since the Rs 13600 scam at Punjab National Bank (PNB) came to light in January 2018. Following this, Modi was arrested in London, by Scotland Yard after a local court issued an arrest warrant against him in response to a request by the Enforcement Directorate for his extradition in a money laundering case. Modi is lodged at Wandsworth prison in south-west London, one of England’s most overcrowded jails, since his arrest in March 2019. He has been denied bail four times by a local court there. The Westminster Magistrates court will hear the extradition plea against Modi from May 11, 2020 to May 15, 2020. Earlier this month in India, a special court declared Modi a fugitive economic offender (FEO). Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi are the main accused in the PNB fraud case, which pertains to alleged fraudulent issuance of Letters of Undertaking (LOUs) that caused a loss of over Rs 13600 crore to the public sector bank.

O is for onions, the bulb that causes tears. Prices hit record highs in October-November after rising slowly since September. Average trading prices in the Nashik wholesale markets, the largest onion trade in the country, hovered around Rs 6,000 a quintal for the latter part of the year. The crisis was fuelled by the failure of the new kharif and the late kharif crop of onions in the state, the latter on account of the unseasonal torrential rains in November. The January harvest is expected to be more plentiful but this crop has a high moisture content and cannot be stored, putting a premium on the produce from the March harvest. As prices rose, a concerned government put the brakes on onion exports, and also promoted some imports. More than 18,000 tonnes of the bulb were imported, but prices remained high in a state that consumes 4,000 to 5,000 tonnes per day. For once, farmers were rejoicing at the marketplace.

P is for the Pawars, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and nephew Ajit Pawar, former deputy chief minister twice over and now minister in the senior Pawar-engineered Sena-Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra. At Satara, Sharad Pawar gave the state one of the most enduring images of the state election in October, as he stood in pouring rain to address a large election rally. It was symbolic of the NCP’s spirited campaign led almost alone by him, in the face of a Congress that appeared eroded and exhausted. Later, after saying with seeming finality that the NCP would sit in Opposition amid speculation that he could extend a helping hand to the BJP after the Sena dug its feet in on its demand for the chief ministerial post for half the government tenure, he began and oversaw negotiations between the three non-BJP parties for government formation. The brief high drama in between was provided by Ajit Pawar, who appeared unhappy during the negotiations as it emerged that the Congress would not be a bit player in the government. On November 22 morning, the former deputy chief minister took oath once again as deputy CM, this time in a cloak and dagger operation that involved whisking off some of his supporters to Raj Bhavan in an early morning operation. He resigned three days later, triggering the collapse of the government. Fadnavis too resigned as it became clear that this political adventure would not clear a floor test. As the three parties welcomed Ajit Pawar back as they set out to form the government, former deputy CM Chhagan Bhujbal described it thus: Subah ka bhoola shaam ko ghar aaye toh use bhoola nahin kahte.

Sharad Pawar addressing a rally amid heavy rain in Satara became the defining image of the Assembly polls. (File)

Q is for queues, as Maharashtra’s voters lined up not once but twice to exercise their franchise. The Assembly elections recorded a 60.46 per cent turnout while the Lok Sabha elections recorded a 61,02 per cent turnout.

Mumbai recorded an all-time high of 109.3 mm rain in the first eight days of November.

R is for rain — record rain. After a more than 30 per cent shortfall in June, the season ended with 10 per cent excess rainfall, the first time such a thing has happened in Mumbai since 1931. In addition, the state witnessed record breaking post-monsoon showers in November. In Mumbai, an all time record of November rain in 1979 at 101.3 mm was broken when the city recorded 109.3 mm of rain in the first eight days of November this year. Cyclones, a sign of rising sea surface temperatures, also made an appearance with the Arabian Sea witnessing the highest ever Cyclonic Disturbances (CDs), seven — four cyclonic storms and three depressions or deep depressions, in 2019. In the past, maximum six cyclonic disturbances were witnessed over Arabian Sea in 1998. The cyclones brought some rain too. Out of the four cyclones — ‘Vayu’ and ‘Hikka’ were very severe cyclonic storms, Maha in October was an extremely severe cyclonic storm whereas Kyarr, which brought unseasonal rains to Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, was a super cyclonic storm.

S is for warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji, in whose honour the state plans to build a grand memorial statue. But it appears that the Maharashtra government’s Public Works Department (PWD) may have misled the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) while applying for environmental clearances for building the statue in the Arabian Sea off south Mumbai. An investigation by The Indian Express showed that while the government received environmental clearance from the Centre in February 2015 for building the memorial within the CRZ, these clearances were obtained by inaccurately stating the distance of the proposed site from the Gateway of India. Also, the MoEF appeared to flout its own norms by considering a different set of sites, including two that had never been examined by the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority. Work on the statue is currently halted after a Supreme Court stay in January 2019 in a special leave petition filed by the Conservation Action Trust (CAT) that has challenged MoEF’s decision to not holding a public hearing for the project. By the year end, despite adverse comments from a preliminary CAG probe on the work of the consultant firm for the Shivaji memorial project and its fee, the state government’s Public Works Department (PWD) initiated the process to pay a further installment to the firm. Sources in the government said that despite the remarks of the CAG, the state PWD had initiated the process to make payment to the consultant on its request for Rs 5 crore.

T is for Tadvi. On May 22, a postgraduate medical student at TN Topiwala National Medical College, attached to civic-run BYL Nair Hospital, Payal Tadvi committed suicide in her hostel room. Tadvi, belonging to the Tadvi Bhil community, a Scheduled Tribe in the state, also left a suicide note — a photograph of which was found only after the forensic science laboratory examined her phone — where she wrote how the harassment she was facing from her three seniors was making it “unbearable” for her to continue. She named Hema Ahuja, Bhakti Mehare and Ankita Khandelwal as the three seniors responsible for her death. Based on the complaint filed by Jalgaon resident Abeda Tadvi, Payal’s mother, an FIR was filed against the three seniors and they are booked under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, Maharashtra Prohibition of Ragging Act, abetment of suicide, destruction of evidence and common intent under the Indian Penal Code. The incident led to widespread protests in the state demanding strict action in cases of discrimination and harassment by students from marginalised communities in institutions of higher education. The three accused who were arrested for the incident were granted bail by the Bombay HC on August 9. The HC, however, has set conditions on them including suspension of their medical licences till the trial ends, bar on entering the premises of their institution. The three have sought relaxation of these conditions.

From the somewhat reluctant political heir of the Shiv Sena to taking on the BJP’s might, Uddhav Thackeray’s political moves drew surprised reactions.

U is for the unruffled new chief minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray. From being the somewhat reluctant political heir of the Shiv Sena to taking on the might of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the CM’s latest political moves drew surprised reactions, especially when he refused to relent after taking a stand that a half-half sharing plan between the BJP and Sena for the chief minister’s office had been discussed, promised and is non-negotiable. On being selected as the CM candidate by the three parties, Thackeray was suddenly addressing press conferences, visiting the Pawar residence Silver Oak, and thanking the Congress for its support to the unlikely alliance. “I feel regret and surprise about one thing — the people with whom we had allied for 30 years didn’t trust me, but the people against whom we fought for 30 years showed trust in my leadership. I have learnt today what I gained and what I lost… Three parties of different ideologies have come together, keeping trust in each other and giving a new direction to the country,” he said. Without naming Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said, “After forming the government, I will go and meet my elder brother in Delhi.” A photography enthusiast and famously soft-spoken leader, he minced no words as he hit out at his erstwhile ally: “Fadnavis’s statement at today’s press conference that nothing had been decided on the CM post pained me a lot. I am ready to speak on any issue at any time. Those who came to Matoshree went on to speak lies outside. Is this their respect for Matoshree? I will not support lies. Lies are not part of my Hindutva.” A little overwhelmed as CM on his first day in the hall of the Legislative Assembly, by the time the Nagpur session came up, he was ready with repartees to the heavyweights now seated on the Opposition benches.

V is for the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, which finished at the general election with the sizeable vote share of about 14 per cent in Maharashtra and sent one victorious candidate to Parliament, journalist-turned politician Imtiyaz Jaleel. The alliance of the All India Majlis e Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) led by Asaduddin Owasi and Prakash Ambedkar’s Bharatiya Republican Party Bahujan Mahasangh placed a decisive role in the victories of Shiv Sena-BJP candidates in as many as seven Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, prompting many to repeat the accusation that the VBA was the ‘B’ team of the BJP, much to Prakash Ambedkar’s chagrin. In these seats — Buldhana, Gadchiroli-Chimur, Hatkanangale, Nanded, Parbhani, Sangli and Solapur — its candidates polled more votes than the margin of victory. The Nanded candidate of the VBA contributed significantly to upset former chief minister Ashok Chavan, who minced no words about the splitting of the secular vote. In all, VBA candidates polled over 41.30 lakh votes across 48 seats. In at least eight seats of Maharashtra’s 48, the VBA candidate’s vote share exceeded 10 per cent, and in 13 seats its candidates polled over 1,00,000 votes. But the sheen wore off rapidly, and the outfit failed to impress at the Assembly elections later in the year. First the AIMIM pulled out of the alliance, and then the outfit failed to win a single seat, its vote share also falling significantly from its Lok Sabha performance.

W is for the Wadala custodial death case. Vijay Singh (26), a Wadala resident, died after he was rounded up by the police and taken to the Wadala police station on October 27. He had been taken to the police station after he had a tiff with a couple while parking his bike. There were no CCTV cameras at the police station in spite of a court order. Five policemen from the police station were transferred soon after the incident. The case is now being investigated by a crime branch SIT that will submit a report on whether Singh was beaten to death by the police.

X is for the X-factor that could spell coalition death for the Maha Vikas Aghadi. The government was cobbled together in a display of politics as the art of the possible. The country watched in amazement this year as the Shiv Sena broke its nearly three-decade old alliance with the BJP, after their saffron alliance won the election, and taught its erstwhile national partner some lessons in coalition arithmetic by tying up with the NCP and the Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi and the new Maharashtra government. But veterans in these parties themselves concede that there are deep internal fissures and contradictions, and any one of them could prove to be the final nail in the coffin. Outside the common minimum programme, the parties are chalk and cheese. Ajit Pawar, now deputy chief minister to Uddhav Thackeray, is a maverick leader capable of the entirely unexpected. One former chief minister is now just another Cabinet minister. The young faces in the Cabinet could trip on their inexperience.

Y is for Yavatmal, home of the radio-collared sub-adult tiger TWLS-T1-C1, who has logged an incredible 1,700 km in seven months since it began its long walk. The tiger is from the Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary and has walked back and forth across eight districts in Maharashtra and Telangana, only once attacking a group of men in Hingoli. The radio collar data shows the tiger has visited more than 5,000 locations in his travels. Officials are still trying to ascertain the reason for the long journey.

Z is for the zoo, which could be visited by the stork soon. According to news reports, all seven Humboldt penguins at the special enclosure in the Byculla zoo, which have been a star attraction since their arrival, have completed molting. The completion of the molting signifies the birds’ readiness for breeding, and the zoo officials couldn’t be happier at the prospect of good news.