Mumbai : 7 from Kurla college among 8 dead Fire in restraurant

Less than 250 meters from their college, seven students from a Kurla-based technical institute died in a fire that broke out in a Chinese food joint Friday afternoon.
According to the police, as many as eight persons died in the incident, and seven of them were from the Don Bosco Institute of Technology (DBIT) in Kurla. The eighth was a design engineer who had his office nearby.
The deceased are Sarjil Sheikh, Sajid Sheikh, Akashi Thapar, Brian Fernandes, Bernadette D’Souza, Irvin D’souza and a boy named Taha, all in their second and third years of college.
The design engineer was 31-year-old Arvind Kanaujiya, who worked with Sterling, an engineering consultancy firm with its office located in a nearby business park.
“They were all trapped on the first floor. According to fire officials, prima facie investigations suggest that a gas leak on the first floor followed by something that sparked led to the fire. The first floor that went up in flames did not have more than 100 square feet area,” said Assistant Municipal Commissioner of L-ward Prashant Sapkale.
Officials said that the fire broke out at 1.30 pm.
The fire caused the connecting staircase to the upper floor to collapse, leaving the eight people trapped upstairs. Also, since the windows there had steel bars, they could not even jump to save their lives.
According to the police, two groups occupied two tables while Kanaujiya was seated alone.
Police said Sarjil, Sajid, Akashi, Brian and Taha sat at one table, while their juniors Bernadette and Irvin had occupied another table.
ACP (Kurla division) Srirang Nadgouda said a case of negligence would be registered against the person who was handling the day-to-day work at the hotel.
“We have found that a person called Tripathi, who managed the hotel on a daily basis, was on the ground floor when the first floor caught fire. He too sustained minor injuries. It was on account of some negligence that such a big incident took place. We will register an FIR against him,” said the officer. He added that if they found out that the owner of the hotel was aware about any norm being flouted, he too would be named as an accused in the FIR.
Another officer said while they had been told that the one-plus-one structure was legal, they had called for the licence and relevant documents from the local L-ward office of the BMC to see if norms had been flouted by the structure.
“Even if the structure is legal, there has definitely been flouting of norms in the cramped first floor structure. We are checking for all permissions and things should soon be clear,” the officer said.
rohit.alok@expressindia.com

Now PAN Card Issued Within 48 Hours

The government will soon launch a facility under which a PAN (Permanent Account Number) card will be issued within 48 hours of applying, according to a senior official.

"An online facility for issuance of PAN is on the anvil under which an applicant can get a PAN card within 48 hours," the official said.

Besides, special camps will be organised throughout the country, including rural areas, to help people get PAN cards.

Permanent Account Number or PAN is a 10-digit alphanumeric number issued in the form of a laminated card by the Income Tax Department.

Recently, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the apex policy-making body of the I-T department, had issued a notification making the Elector's Photo Identity Card (EPIC) and Aadhaar valid proofs of "date of birth" for obtaining a PAN card.
PAN is required for filing income tax returns, sale or purchase of any immovable property beyond a certain amount and sale or purchase of a motor vehicle, among others.

The Finance Act 2015 proposes quoting PAN mandatory for buying jewellery valued at Rs 1 lakh or more.

The official further said that a total 4.73 crore tax returns were filed in 2014-15, of which only 6 lakh were scrutinized by the Income Tax Department.

Maharashtra Government Hikes VAT on fuel, liquor, gold

You will pay 5 per cent more for your favorite drinks and cigarettes and also pay Rs 2 extra per litre for buying fuel for your vehicle from today, thanks to a ‘drought tax’ imposed by the state government. The state cabinet approved a decision to this effect on Wednesday. It also decided to ask the people to pay 0.2 per cent more to buy gold, diamonds and jewellery.

Experts in Mantralaya said that this was a one-of-a-kind move by the BJP-led government because tax rates were always revised in annual budgets. From today, aerated drinks too will cost 5 per cent more, said Finance and Planning Minister, Sudhir Mungantiwar.

He said the state was expecting to raise Rs 1,600 crore in the next five months from the drought tax, after which these taxes will be rationalised in tune with the goods and services tax (GST) in the next annual budget“The people of Maharashtra are generous. We are confident that they will welcome the decision and help their brethren in distressed areas,” said Mungantiwar after the cabinet meeting.

The minister said that a surcharge of Rs 2 per litre on fuel would help the state compensate for a monthly loss of R300 crore that it would have suffered because of the scrapping of local body tax (LBT). “Today, the cabinet also decided to scrap the LBT on fuel in municipal areas,” he said.

People, opposition slam government
The decision did not go well with citizens, especially because it was taken ahead of a festival season. “We understand the plight of the farmers, but the government should not burden people like us who are fighting inflation these days. Costly fuel would add to transport costs which will be passed on to end consumers like us,” said RT Pawar, 47, a resident of Sion.

The Congress slammed the BJP for taxing people and accused it of raising funds for celebrating its one year in power. “The BJP government needs more money to publicise its so-called achievements. This is the same government that denied loan waiver to indebted farmers,” said Congressman and opposition leader in the legislative assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil.

Sources said the state government was mulling the drought tax since this year’s annual budget was presented. The finance minister and CM Devendra Fadnavis had also spoken about it. Parts of Vidarbha and western Maharashtra and entire Marathwada (central Maharashtra) are reeling under acute drought this year.

The government has started many short-term and long-term initiatives to mitigate the drought situation. Suicides of distressed farmers have also increased in the past 10 months. The state government said in a statement that the LBT on petrol and diesel was scrapped recently. The LBT for traders with an annual turnover less than Rs 50 crore has also been scrapped.

“Since this reduction had resulted in decreasing the cost of luxury items like liquor, cigarette and aerated drinks, we have decided to increase taxes on these items and also impose a surcharge on petrol and diesel,” said the statement, adding that the tax on gold and diamond jewellery has been increased from 1 per cent to 1.20 per cent.

It further said that due to the decreased fuel prices (in view of the global crude market) the state has been incurring a loss of R300 crore per month. It maintained that the state’s tax rate on petrol and diesel was less than other states like Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Karnataka and Kerala.

By Mid-Day

Maha CM discusses plan to connect international airport with Navi Mumbai airport via Metro

The Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis during the war room discussion on Wednesday discussed the plan of a Metro rail connecting the International Airport with the proposed Navi Mumbai Airport.

It should be noted that, at present, the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro line three corridor will be implemented along with the Metro line two of Dahisar-Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd, which will connect the airport to Mankhurd and, in order to improve the connectivity further, the Metro line between Mankhurd and Navi Mumbai International Airport, which is expected to be ready by 2020, is being planned.

In order to speed up the implementation of Metro line 3, the government departments are expected to hand over the land which is in their possession to the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) in a week’s time. According to government officials, the development took place in the CM-led ‘war room’ discussion that happened on Wednesday.

Sources also told this newspaper that other important projects discussed in the meeting include the two other Metro corridors between Dahisar and Andheri (east), and Dahisar and DN Nagar.

The Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link project connecting Sewree with Nhava Sheva were also discussed during the meeting. "The BNHS which was asked to prepare a report suggesting mitigation measures during the construction of MTHL has submitted the project report to us and soon we would be sending our report to MoEF,” said an officer.