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TOI : PUNE: Until two weeks ago, N. Rajaram was seriously considering buying his dream home in one of the housing complexes coming up on the city’s outskirts. However, the 30-something finance manager in a city-based engineering firm is now backtracking on his idea, at least for some time, thanks to inflation.

He is facing a double whammy of staggering household expenditure and a rise in the interest rate on housing loans, which will leave a big hole in his pocket, making it difficult for him to run the house.

Many like Rajaram are in no mood to buy a house for the same reasons. The home loan interest rates, which were hovering around 10 per cent, have jumped to over 14 per cent.

The country’s largest home loans company, HDFC, and the largest private sector bank, ICICI Bank, have led the way and announced a rise in their lending rates. It is only a matter of time before other banks and institutions followed suit.

From the monthly repayment of home loan, which was around Rs 9,500 for every Rs 10 lakh till recently, the borrowers will now have to shell out Rs 12,000 for the same amount.

“The situation is such that the estimates of monthly household expenses have gone up, thereby reducing the amount of loan a borrower is eligible to borrow. Also, because of the high rate of interest, the equated monthly instalment (EMI) will be higher, further cutting into the amount available for spending on routine needs,” said a real estate sector observer.

“Even those who have borrowed earlier on a floating rate basis will feel the pinch. The repayment period in their cases will be extended to accommodate the extra burden if the EMI is to be maintained at the present levels and to those who don’t have enough time before they superannuate the…More

TOI : PUNE: Pune has managed to get the average rainfall for the month of June, thanks to heavy showers, particularly in the catchment areas, towards the end of the month. However, many districts in the state did not receive average rainfall last month.

“Due to the presence of an offshore trough, most parts of the state received rain. The trough extends from the Gujarat coast to the Kerala coast with embedded cyclonic circulation over northeast Arabian Sea. Due to this, widespread rainfall with heavy to very heavy showers at a few places is likely over Konkan and Goa, south Gujarat region and Saurashtra in the next 48 hours,” said Medha Khole, director (weather central), India Meteorological Department (IMD).

Fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy showers are also likely over Madhya Maharashtra, coastal Karnataka, Kerala and Lakshadweep during the same period, she added.

Pune, which was suffering from a poor rainfall after the start of the monsoon, witnessed good rainfall in the last couple of days of June. As per the figures available with the Met department, Pune received 52 mm rainfall on Sunday and Monday, taking the total rainfall for the first month of the season up to 128 mm, more by 15 mm than normal.

Places like Mumbai, Mahabaleshwar, Nagpur and Parbhani recorded more than normal rainfall. Till the end of June, Mumbai received 734.9 mm rainfall — 183.9 mm more than average. During the same period, Mahabaleshwar recorded 1,293.7 mm rainfall — 438.7 mm more than normal. It witnessed 215 mm rainfall during the last two days of last month. Nagpur received 205.9 mm rainfall — 31.3 mm more than normal.

Many districts of Maharashtra did not record even normal rainfall for June. Akola recorded only 4.1 mm — 52.4 mm less than normal. Other cities like Aurangabad, Ahmednagar, Jalgaon, Nashik, Ratnagiri, Solapur and Yavatmal…More

TOI : PUNE: With no sight of approval from elected members to the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), the civic administration has formed a ’special projects division’ to implement the traffic and transport infrastructure projects until the SPV is sanctioned.

The Special Projects Division (SPD) will look into preparing general arrangement designs and tenders for flyovers, elevated roads, railway over bridges and bridges.

Municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi had tabled the ambitious SPV proposal in April — a PMC undertaking company titled ‘Pune Municipal Infrastructure Development Corporation’.

Pardeshi had stated that such a company is required as more than Rs 5,000 crore will be spent to boost city’s traffic and transport infrastructure. However, a senior civic officials told TOI that the elected members have still not made up their mind about the SPV fearing they will lose control over project approvals.

Meanwhile, the Comprehensive Mobility Plan was recently submitted by the consultants who chalked out infrastructure projects worth Rs 1900 crore.

Since the SPV has not been sanctioned, which is supposed to implement these projects, the civic administration has come up with a temporary arrangement by forming the special projects division.

On Tuesday, the civic administration made a presentation before the standing committee about projects of flyovers and bridges worth Rs 700 crore.

Standing committee chairman Sham Deshpande said the idea behind the presentation was to seek suggestions from elected members about the projects. He added that the planning and designing of the projects will be done by December and the implementation will begin soon after.

A civic official pointed out that projects worth Rs 125 crore will be implemented in the initial phase and for the remaining projects will start after fund allocation is made.
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TOI : PUNE: Heavy rains on Tuesday affected rail and road traffic between Pune and Mumbai. Three inter-city trains — Sinhagad, Pragati and Deccan Queen — were terminated mid-way at different stations on the way to Mumbai. Through the day, the bus service between the two cities also ran behind schedule.

As a result, many travellers and daily commuters were inconvenienced and were unable to reach their destinations on time.

“The three inter-city trains were halted and terminated mid-way due to water logging on railway tracks at various places. The trains had departed from the city on time, but were unable to enter the Mumbai region,” said Y.K. Singh, public relations officer, Pune railway division.

“The Sinhagad Express was terminated at Badlapur, while Pragati Express and the Deccan Queen Express were terminated at Lonavla and Karjat stations respectively. The trains returned to Pune as railway tracks in Mumbai remained under water,” he added.

Moreover, he said, all trains on the Mumbai-Pune route, too, were running behind schedule. The Pune-bound Indrayani Express and the Deccan Express reached the city nearly four hours late. Though the railway authorities have rescheduled several long route trains passing through Pune, none were cancelled.

Heavy rains lashing the region also caused problems for road traffic on the old Pune-Mumbai highway, as well as the expressway. An official from the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation told TOI, “The buses to Mumbai were running three to four hours late, but none were cancelled. Buses coming from Mumbai reached the city late. The Pune station bus stand registered around 32 trips of various private and state buses between Pune and Dadar.”

On the whole, taxi services remained unaffected, except delays due to slow movement of vehicles in the ghat section, said an official of the Pune-Mumbai taxi service union.
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TOI : PUNE: An assistant sub-inspector (ASI) has been suspended by deputy commissioner of police (zone IV) Dr Jalindar Supekar after he was found snatching money from a complainant and his relative at the Alandi road police chowky.

ASI Santosh Jangam was on duty at the Alandi road police chowky on June 16, when Saurabh Kakade of Dhanori went there with his wife and sister to file a complaint. Kakade stated that one Chanda Wadekar and her family assaulted his pregnant wife and snatched her gold ornaments.

Wadekar, who conducts beauty parlour classes, had trained Kakade’s wife, Karishma. The woman refused to make full payment for the course as she felt it was not thoroughly done. An angry Wadekar then allegedly assaulted Karishma and snatched her jewellery.
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