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Maharashtra loses Textile Commissionerate, oppn slams shift from Mumbai to Delhi

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The Centre has decided to move the 80-year-old office of Textile Commissioner, along with other key officers from Mumbai to New Delhi, by April 5, as per an official order.

This is the second major department after the autonomous ‘Dattopant Thengadi National Board for Workers Education & Development (DTNBWED)’, which was shifted from Nagpur to New Delhi in 2021.

The latest measure has sparked a fresh furore among the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders who slammed the BJP government for the decision.

As per an order from Jayashree Sivakumar, Under Secretary, Ministry of Textiles to Textile Commissioner Mumbai Roop Rashi, the move is part of measures to “restructure the office of Textile Commissioner and Textile Committee in order to enhance effectiveness and achieve optimal use of resources”.

For this, the Textile Commissioner and few key officials would be relocated to the MoT to strengthen the technical arm of the ministry, deploy/depute officers/staff from the head office to the TC and field offices.

Besides the Textile Commissioner, a Joint Textile Commissioner, two Deputy Secretaries (Director rank) and two Deputy Director level officers would be going to New Delhi as part of the restructure/merger exercise.

While the Textile Commissioner will not be stationed in the MoT, the other officers shall be seated at the Noida regional office.

The Textile Commissioner is a critical appointee, functioning as the principal technical advisor to the MoT, conducts techno-economic surveys, advises the government on the overall status of the textiles sector, with regional offices in Navi Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Indore, Amritsar, Coimbatore and NOIDA.

Managing Partner Purushottam Sarda of Vinayak Process, a textile unit in Sangli, the shift could jeopardise subsidies worth hundreds of crores of rupees are pending for past three years from the Centre to thousands of textile units handlooms, powerlooms, auto-looms like Airjet. Waterjet, Sulzer, Rapier — in the state.

“After the Textile Commissionerate shifts to New Delhi, we shall face huge problems of recovery, and will be forced to make multiple trips which will further add to losses,” Sarda told IANS.

Slamming the move, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut said this is part of the BJP’s strategy to take away all offices from Mumbai/Maharashtra to Delhi or Gujarat, though this state is a major hub of the textile industry with units in Mumbai, Thane, and Ichalkaranji of Kolhapur. called the ‘Manchester of the east’.

Congress chief spokesperson Atul Londhe said that since “they cannot shift Mumbai to Gujarat, the BJP is destroying all important offices/departments by taking them away from Maharashtra to either Delhi or Gujarat”, which is detrimental to the people of this state.

Nationalist Congress Party national spokesperson Clyde Crasto said the decision is “hardly surprising” but warned that the people of Maharashtra are watching and they will remember it in the elections.

“The BJP at the Centre is hellbent on putting brakes on Maharashtra’s progress. Ever since the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government took over, all major projects/institutions/departments are being taken away from Mumbai or the state,” said Crasto.

Shiv Sena (UBT)’s national spokesperson Kishore Tiwari wondered why aceall the BJP union ministers from the state and the “ED government here are maintaining a deafening silence, as usual”, and named Nitin Gadkari, Narayan Rane, Piyush Goyal, Raosaheb Patil-Danve, Bharati Pawar, Kapil Patil and Bhagwat Karad, besides Ramdas Athawale.

“Either they lack the courage to speak up for the Marathi people here or they are obviously hand-in-glove with the Centre to ensure the destruction of their own home-state,” said Tiwari.

The Textile Commissionerate here was set up in 1943 at the height of World War II to satisfy the huge British demand for clothing of its armed forces and civilians, and the industry developed in a big way post-Independence.

Maharashtra

Removing the Pakistani flag at Vile Parle station was costly, a case was registered against five people including a woman, police took action after the video went viral on social media

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Mumbai: The Juhu police has registered an FIR against six unidentified individuals, including a burqa-clad woman, for allegedly gathering unlawfully, verbally abusing, and physically assaulting people who opposed the removal of Pakistani flags near the west side of Vile Parle railway station.

According to the FIR, the incident took place on May 4, when the accused were seen removing Pakistani flags that had been pasted on the stair steps of the Vile Parle railway station as part of a protest against the April 22 massacre of Hindu tourists in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir.

The police have registered the case under Sections 189(2) (unlawful assembly), 190 (every member of an unlawful assembly guilty of an offence committed in pursuit of a common object), and 352 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

The complainant, Santosh Salukhe, 49, a policeman, stated that he saw a video on Facebook, showing a veiled woman and four to five unidentified youths removing the Pakistani flags from the stair steps at Vile Parle railway station (West).

Salukhe immediately rushed to the location and learned that around 4 p.m. the same day, some unidentified individuals had pasted the Pakistani flags in front of the ticket counter at the station and on the steps as a symbolic protest against the recent terrorist attacks on tourists in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir. The flags carried the message “Step on it.” Those who pasted the flags left soon after.

Later, the veiled woman and her group arrived at the Vile Parle railway station and began removing the flags, which created a disturbance for commuters. When some people tried to stop them, the woman and her associates allegedly physically assaulted and verbally abused them, resulting in a brief period of tension at the station. Gurpreet Anand of Ankush Foundation had distributed free stickers of the Pakistani flag with the message “Step on it” printed at the bottom.

On Wednesday, he went to Juhu police station along with Parag Alavani MLA and others with a view to register an FIR. “However, the police did not register our FIR,” he told Media. But on Friday, a constable filed an FIR. Subsequently, the police registered a case. Juhu police officials said no arrests have been made yet, and no notices have been issued as they are in the process of identifying the accused.

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Maharashtra

Mumbai bus travel becomes more expensive, fares increase

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SOURCE: FREE PRESS JUORNAL

Mumbai : Mumbai citizens have been hit by inflation ahead of the BMC elections. The fare hike for BEST buses has been approved. An additional fare of twice the fare will be implemented from today, which will now mean that BEST passengers will have to pay an additional fare, which will affect the pockets of the passengers. The BEST administration has decided to implement the new fare from May 9. The fare has been increased for distances of 5, 10, and 20 kilometers.

The fare for a distance of 5 kilometers has been doubled. The fare for a distance of 5 kilometers has been increased from Rs 6 to Rs 12. No concession has been given in the fare for a 12-year-old child. The daily pass was previously Rs 60, but now the new fare has been increased to Rs 75. The monthly pass is from Rs 900 to Rs 1,800. The facility of Chalo Bus Pass has been provided for children of the Municipal Corporation. The increase in bus fares and tickets in Mumbai has put a burden on the pockets of the citizens. Shared taxis and auto rickshaws are also operated in Mumbai city and its suburbs, but due to the fare, many passengers are unable to pay for these shared means of transport and travel by buses.

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Maharashtra

The verdict in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case will be announced on July 31

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Mumbai: The verdict in the September 29, 2008 bomb blast in Malegaon will be pronounced on July 31. BJP leader and former MP Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Lt. Col. Srikant Prasad Purohit, former Major Ramesh Upadhyay, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, Swami Dayanand Pandey, Ajay Rahirkar, and Sameer Kulkarni are accused of being involved in illegal activities. A bomb was planted in Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur’s scooter, after which the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested 13 accused in the case and charged 7 accused. The hearing of the Malegaon bomb blast will be completed in April. The verdict was expected to be pronounced today, but the court gave the reason that more than one lakh pages are under study and therefore the matter has been adjourned till July 31.

A bomb blast in a scooter at Bhakko Chowk killed 7 people and injured 100. In this case, ATS Chief Hemant Karkare investigated and MCOCA was also applied to the accused, but this investigation was later handed over to the NIA in 2011. The NIA has sought death penalty for the accused in this case. Statements of 223 witnesses were recorded in this case and 23 witnesses defected in the court, including 8 witnesses from the army and defense department. The court has ordered all the accused to be present on July 31 and if anyone is absent, action will be taken against him. The court will pronounce its verdict in this case only on July 31 because the hearing of the case has been completed and the court has also reserved its verdict.

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