Mumbai News Live Updates: Mega blocks on all 3 local train sections today

A man's claim for compensation following the theft of his car was rejected by the Thane Additional District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission over insurance norm violations as he had used a private car for commercial purposes, an official said on Sunday. The commission upheld the contention of the insurance firm that the man had filed his claim after 42 days of the incident.

A senior citizen was killed after a motorcyclist rammed into him on Western Express Highway (WEH) at Goregaon (E) recently.The motorcyclist, Siddhesh Dhuri, was also injured. Vanrai police registered a case of rash driving and negligence against Dhuri.

More than 100 cases of malpractices have been reported during the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exam that ended on Saturday. Over 15.77 lakh students, including 3.54 lakh from the Mumbai division, had registered for the exam.

With Covid cases rising since mid-February, the number of active cases in Maharashtra has increased at least 10 times – from 198 on March 1 to 1,956 on Saturday. The active caseload in Mumbai is close to 500 (487).In view of this rising graph, the central government on Saturday instructed Maharashtra, which accounts for 21% of the country’s Covid cases at present, to step up daily testing. Other states reporting a spurt in cases including Kerala (which accounts for 26. 4% of the active cases), Gujarat (13. 9%), Karnataka (8. 6%) and Tamil Nadu (6. 3%).

Following a demand from Maha Vikas Aghadi MLCs for a castebased census in Maharashtra, and legislative council’s deputy chairperson Neelam Gorhe’s directions to the state government to clarify its stand and announce its policy on having a caste-based census soon, deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis announced the state government will study the caste based census being conducted by the Bihar government and a decision will be taken after that.Fadnavis also announced that schemes will be prepared for economically backward people in the open category.

Observing that there was a four-year delay in demolition and reconstruction work of Andheri’s Gokhale road bridge, the CAG slammed the BMC in its report, saying that after the initial phase of Covid -19 lockdowns, the “work should have been planned to be executed in a timely manner”, which was not done, and that no action taken by the BMC to prioritise work was found on record, reports Chaitanya Marpakwar.The CAG said better coordination with the Western Railways (WR) was requiredfor timely completion of the project, the primary responsibility for which was with the BMC. The CAG pointed out that even after the collapse of a part of the bridge in July 2018, and recommendations of the structural auditor, BMC did not plan for reconstruction of the bridge in a timely manner.

In response to the Comptroller and Auditor General’s damning report, the BMC said it had to award projects without tendering, especially during the pandemic, because the works were urgently required for public safety.Listing lapses, the CAG report said: “These major lapses point to scant respect for established procedures and weak internal controls in BMC leading to lack of transparency and probity in the execution of works undertaken at a significant cost. ”Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said the CAG report exposed corruption within the BMC. “The audit report shows that the working of the BMC lacks transparency and is corrupt. This is just a trailer because only a fraction of work was scrutinised,” he said in the state assembly.

CR’s Main and Harbour lines and WRsuburban section will have mega blocks on Sunday. On CR Main, the block will be on Thane-Kalyan Up and Down fast lines from 10. 40am to 3. 40pm. On Harbour, it will be from Kurla to Vashi on both Up and Down lines from 11. 10am to 4. 10pm. On WR, a block will be taken on 5th line from Borivli to Jogeshwari from 10. 35am to 3. 35pm.