Letters to the editor: Trying to kill many birds with a single stroke

Trying to kill many birds with a single stroke
‘Ajit quits & goes for the kill’ (Sep 26) gives an inside truth about the power struggle going on within the NCP. And Deepak Lokhande’s  analysis ‘Dada takes on all comers, including uncle’ seems to be on the right track. Ajit has tried to come out of the shackles of his uncle Sharad Pawar for long and with this master stroke he has tried to kill many birds with one stone. He had to get rid of the heavyweights  like Chhagan Bhujbal, Sunil Tatkare, Gulabrao Deokar, Jaidutt Kshirsagar & Anil Deshmukh — all involved in various scams but still clinging to their posts. With the sword of the ‘white paper on irrigation’ hanging on his head Ajit was compelled to take this drastic step. Only time will tell if he too is guilty of awarding so many irrigation contracts within a short span of three months. NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s hurried interview to a Marathi channel in Delhi was to assert his supremacy when he said, “No one else needs to decide for the party, the high command will take a decision”. The rift within the NCP has come to the fore. Is the party going to split? Interestingly, all the other 19 ministers have sent in their resignations to the party president and not to the chief minister. This shows that the NCP is showing its muscles to the Congress and daring it.
—Yash Verma, Pune  

II
The crisis in the Maharashtra government with the resignation of Ajit Pawar is a political gimmick. It is a threat to chief minister Pritviraj Chavan. The NCP has done enough and more damages to the coalition government. It is a matter of concern that the irrigation potential of the state has grown a minuscule of 0.1% in the past one decade and this particular portfolio was held by the NCP from 1999.  It is distressing to note that the revised administrative approval for many projects in the Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation has been given in a matter of days.

Surely, something must have been wrong. Furthermore, many farmers have committed suicide in this area during the past one decade unable to sustain the losses they suffered. The state government should not give in to the tactics of the NCP. It should, as promised, bring in a white paper on irrigation. There should be a review of granting revised sanctions to the irrigation projects.
—NR Ramachandran, Ooty

III
With the deputy chief minister tendering his resignation to the chief minister, the palpable rift between the Congress and the NCP has widened and it could now reach a point of no return. If Ajit Pawar and his 20 colleagues are adamant by pressing for its acceptance, then the writing is on the wall for the ‘ill-at-ease’ Congress-NCP combine. Albeit Sharad Pawar keeps saying that there is no rift or threat to the government in the state, the Cong-NCP combine has lost the moral right to remain in the saddle after the contractors allegedly siphoned off thousands of crores of rupees by inflating the cost of the irrigation projects.

However, it is important to figure out whether it is a pressure tactic as NCP is known for such things going by the previous experiences.
—HP Murali, Bangalore

Save Gilbert Hill
Apropos of ‘Gilbert hill: The first among equals’ (Sep 26), DNA deserves to be complimented on giving extensive coverage to this geological monolith. It is unique because it is composed entirely of vertical columns of basalt rock which is 65 million years old. Since there is no permanent cement between them, the columns are liable to be dislodged by vibrations, and, in fact, a huge chunk of the hill fell off during the 2005 deluge. The Bombay high court evinced great interest in preserving the hill and prohibited all construction activity in its vicinity, but as your photographs show, quite a few high-rise structures have come up all around the hill, some within a shaking-hands distance. The court also had the structure examined by an expert committee and it recommended a few measures to prevent any further loss of the hill through rock-falls. From a geological point of view, it is necessary to spray a mixture of cement and other materials over the columns to keep them in place and avoid all construction around it. It is the only feature that has survived quarrying in the locality after it was declared a National Park in 1952 by the Geological Survey of India. It should be preserved at all costs.
—V Subramanyan, Thane

‘Killer’ earphones  
This has reference to ‘Ear phones claim another victim’ (sept 26)’. On commuting from Kalyan to CST daily, I have witnessed such cases at various railway stations. A law has to be framed immediately so as to deter people from using earphones at public places and in vehicles. The police should be authorised to punish such offenders with some fine as declared by the government.
—M Veeran, Mumbai

BMC to repair highways
This has reference to ‘BMC to fill highway pits, citizens sceptical’ (Sep 26). The decision of the state government to hand over maintenance of the Western and Eastern Express Highways to the BMC is a strange one. The BMC doesn’t have a good track record  in maintaining roads under their care. Therefore, taking care of two express highways which see much heavier traffic will be a major task for them. As it is, the highways are in poor shape with indiscriminate use of paver blocks, uneven surfaces and horrible maintenance. With the BMC’s reputation of filling potholes which disintegrate after a few showers, poor quality macadam and politician-contractor nexus, one can only wonder what will happen to the highways. It might be a better suggestion to create a road maintenance department with expert personnel from the BMC, PWD and MMRDA that functions transparently and without undue political influence to choose the best contractors, monitor repairs and maintenance, and apply punitive action on erring contractors without prejudice or favouritism.
—Suren Abreu, Mumbai