Frequent power cuts upset Kopar Khairane residents Seven held for cheating vehicle owners at Rabale

After working for around eight years from a rented house at Sector 6, the Kopar Khairane police are likely to get their own building soon.

In a recent meeting, the City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco) promised to start construction of the building for the police and the traffic officials on a plot at sector 19 which was allotted for this purpose in 2009.

If everything goes according to plans, the new police station will be ready within one-and-a-half year, senior police officer said.

The Kopar Khairane node got its own police station in 2008 after being under Turbhe police station for several decades. The police station does not have lock-up, space to keep seized vehicles and rest room for the 150 officers. They keep their arrested people either in the lock-ups of Vashi or APMC police station.

Satish Gaikward, senior police inspector of Kopar Khairane police station said, “The building on the plot would have been constructed much earlier. After Cidco planned the building for the police station, the traffic unit also asked for some space there. The traffic officials had valid reasons as they too don’t have any permanent office in Kopar Khairane.”

“Cidco had to change their initial plan and this delayed in the planning of the building. According to the plan, the traffic unit will get one floor in the upcoming building,” he said. Volunteers of Nanasaheb Dharmadhikari Pratishthan clean a road at Nerul MIDC on Thursday.

Regular power failures in several parts of the city has become a regular feature since the past few days. While residents are questioning the premonsoon work of MSEDCL, its officials said that these are teething problems faced at the start of every monsoon.

Residents of some areas of Kopar Khairane including sector 11 had a horrific Wednesday night and Thursday following repeated power cuts at regular intervals. The node had faced similar problems a couple of days ago too.

Saurabh Pandya, a local resident, said: “We are going through very tough times for the past few days. There are power failures at anytime of the day and it becomes very difficult in the night. One can hardly sleep in the heat.”

He added, “We have repeatedly complaint to the MSEDCL authorities but nothing much has changed.”

Additional executive engineer, MSEDCL Jaideep Nanote said, “We have a 33/11 KV substation for the area which has two transformers of 33 KV. One of the transformer broke down due to the rains, which led to extra load on one transformer.”

He added, “We had to shut down power in some areas at regular intervals to ensure power for all in the area. We have attended to it and the problem was resolved on Thursday with both transformers in working condition.”

Nanote said, “This is a regular feature during the initial period of monsoon as water seeps into cables leading to problems. This happens due to digging work.”

Claiming that all pre-monsoon work has been completed, Nanote said, “It involves oil top up and checking fuse of transformers and also cables, which has been completed.”

Nanote said, “There are three sub-divisions of Vashi division, which include Vashi, Kopar Khairane and Airoli. As per the disaster management plan an extra vehicle with 4 skilled labourers has been given to each of the three divisions for the night time, apart from other vehicles they have. It will help in the personnel reaching problem areas immediately.”

He added, “As per the instructions of chief engineer Satish Karpe, one drum of cables too has been given to each division so that they can solve their problems locally.”

Nanote said, “We are constantly monitoring the situation.”

The Rabale MIDC police have arrested seven members of a gang who cheated people by taking their cars on rent. The police have seized 39 cars from their possession.

According to the police, the gang would take cars and SUVs promising Rs30,000-35,000 monthly rent to the owners. They told the owners that some private companies would use the vehicles for their employees.

“However, the suspects would get new number plate of the vehicles from the RTO and would rent those out to some other people for huge amounts. They rented out some vehicles for Rs2-3 lakh for three months,” said Babasaheb Tute, police inspector from Rabale MIDC police station.

“They would take money from their tenants, but did not pay a single penny to the original owners of the vehicles. When the vehicles owners contacted them for the rents, they would threaten them. They also refused to return the vehicles,” he said.

Last month, some vehicle owners approached the police and registered a first information report (FIR) against the suspects. Following that the police arrested seven people over the past one week.

The accused have been booked under sections 420, 120B and 467 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). While three of them have been remanded to jail custody, four others are still in police custody till June 26.

“The vehicle owners are from different places such as Airoli, Thane, Belapur and Panvel. According to them, the gang had taken around 50 vehicles on rent, of which, we have seized 39 vehicles. We are now searching for the remaining 11 vehicles and hope to recover them soon,” Tute said.

BACHCHAN KUMAR