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By:

Minal Sancheti

2 May 2026 at 12:26:53 pm

Tussle between BMC, WR leaves Dadar dry

Mumbai: Dadar is the only railway station in Mumbai that has no authorised water connection. This, as per the sources, is due to an ongoing dispute between the Western Railway and the BMC. The tussle between the BMC and the Western Railway has led to a strange situation. The Western Railway is asking the BMC to pay Rs 338 crore for way leave charges, and the Western Railway has to pay Rs 22 Lakh to the BMC. The tussle has been going on for 12 years and remains unresolved. As per the sources,...

Tussle between BMC, WR leaves Dadar dry

Mumbai: Dadar is the only railway station in Mumbai that has no authorised water connection. This, as per the sources, is due to an ongoing dispute between the Western Railway and the BMC. The tussle between the BMC and the Western Railway has led to a strange situation. The Western Railway is asking the BMC to pay Rs 338 crore for way leave charges, and the Western Railway has to pay Rs 22 Lakh to the BMC. The tussle has been going on for 12 years and remains unresolved. As per the sources, due to this, the BMC has not given any new connections to the Western Railway, which needs the connections because of the increase in the capacity of new coaches. Currently, the Western Railway is facing a water shortage of 20 per cent for train operations. Thus, the water is being filled at the next train stops like Surat and Valsad, or wherever the train halts. The dependency on water tankers has increased because the Western Railway did not have enough water connections from the BMC. This has caused more expenditure for the Western Railway. For Dadar terminus, the Western Railway uses 40 water tankers, each water tanker of the capacity of 10,000 litres, which comes down to four lakh litres of water every day. Around eight water tankers of the capacity of 10,000 litres, which comes down to 80,000 litres of water, are required for Dadar station. In total, the Western Railway incurs expenses on 4,80,000 litres of water every day. BMC PRO Tanaji Kamble has denied that there was no water connection at Dadar Railway Station. “Every station has BMC water connection,” he said. Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) of Western Railway Vineet Abhishek said, “All efforts are being taken to ensure there is no inconvenience to our passengers.”

Women Safety on Cards

Updated: Nov 18, 2024

vWomen Safety

For the speedy disposal of cases of crimes against women, the state government took the decision to set up Special Courts. 25 Fast Track Courts are being proposed for disposal of criminal cases relating to the atrocities on women and mentally handicapped girls. The Maharashtra Assembly unanimously passed a bill that aims to establish special courts to ensure speedy trial of offences against women and children under the Shakti Act. The much needed proposal got the nod of the legislature however, it gathered a lot of dust in the Law and Judiciary department in Mantralaya before it could take off.


The government took this decision with an aim to conduct trials without delay in cases of certain offences against women and children. As per the decision, exclusive special courts were to be set up. Provisions for appointing a special public prosecutor for conducting trials and forming special police teams to probe the offences were also made. Presently, courts at Ahmednagar, Akola, Amaravati, Aurangabad, Buldhana, Beed, Jalgaon, Nagpur, Yawatmal, Thane, Pune & Kolhapur are in operation along with special court for Cases of Immoral trafficking at Mumbai. Prior to this the Shakti Criminal Laws (Maharashtra Amendment) Bill, which provides for stricter punishment, including death penalty, for crimes against women, was passed unanimously by both the Houses of the legislature.


Everything went well at the initial state. The government announced that it will provide all required assistance for the speedy trial of cases of crime against women and children under the Shakti Act.


The government had also announced that as per the bill, exclusive special courts can be set up for hearing the cases or existing courts can be given that rank depending upon the situation. The government made all the arrangements to make provisions and infrastructure available. At the beginning 25 Fast Track Courts were being proposed for disposal of criminal cases relating to the atrocities on women and mentally handicapped girls. The proposal went through various administrative hurdles and after this the journey started but very slow.


Interestingly, with the formation of these new exclusive special courts, the speed of the trial remained the same. As per the survey, fast-track courts in Delhi dispose of a case in 122 days on an average, while a regular court takes 133 days. No different story in Mumbai.


So the question remains that why are fast-track courts failing to fulfil their purpose? Experts say fast-track courts operate no differently than regular courts. For one, they have similarly heavy caseloads.


A fast track court is set up for a category of disputes. These categories themselves have a large chunk of cases. So it is just like any other court hall in the district judiciary -- you have the court hall under individual judges who have anywhere between 50 to 100 cases listed per day.

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