MUMBAI, July 10 -- The Bombay high court on Tuesday restrained the BMC from taking action against 311 bakeries for not transitioning to cleaner fuels before the July 8 deadline, and extended it to July 28. The division bench of Justice M S Karnik and Justice N R Borkar passed the order on an application filed by Masoodul Hasan Khan and others, seeking more time to comply with the civic notice. Subsequent to a high court order of January 9, the BMC had issued notices to all city bakeries that were being run on coal or wood, ordering them to shift to electric ovens or cleaner fuels like LPG or PNG by July 8. However, around 311 bakeries continue to function on conventional fuels. Offering a reason for this, the Bombay Bakers Association (BBA) stated that the transition to cleaner fuels was hindered by the BMC itself. "Many bakeries have applied for gas connections from Mahanagar Gas Limited (MGL)," said BBA president M Yakub. "But the BMC is not giving permission to dig up the newly laid concrete roads. Permission to dig is anyway difficult to get during the monsoon. We will need a year's time to make the transition." When asked, additional municipal commissioner Abhijeet Bangar said that to the best of his knowledge, no MGL connection was stuck due to lack of digging permission. "Permission to dig up roads is not given during the monsoon except in emergency cases," he said. "After the monsoon, an exception may be made for MGL, as their gas lines cannot go into ducts." A BMC official from the environment department added a call on road-digging would be taken on a case-by-case basis. The official said 46 of the 573 operational bakeries had made the switch. "Another 28 are in mid-transition, one bakery has shut down," he said The official pegged the cost of making the switch at between Rs.10 and 20 lakh and more, depending on the size of the bakery. "We have briefed the bakeries about a central government scheme that will give them a Rs.1-crore loan, along with a Rs.10 lakh subsidy."...