Monday, February 7, 2022

Pizzapro Ooni Karu Multi-Fuel Pizza Oven - unboxing

 I ordered Pizzapro Ooni Karu Mult-Fuel Pizza oven a few days back, after seeing feedback online and it finally arrived today !












The Pizza Oven was sent through BLUEDART and the delivery was smooth, packaging was really good.

The oven looks sturdy and compact, can't want to start using it !!.. will post more pics, happy with the purchase. 

Where to order from - https://pizzapro.in/




Home loan Experience - State Bank Of India (SBI), Pune

 I am re-locating to Pune for my new job and was initially looking for housing on rent, near Kalayani Nagar or Viman Nagar. Surprised to see that the rentals are top of the roof, Rs 40,000 for 3BHK (un-furnished), Kitchen without cabinets, no wardrobes...  this was really shocking as I am moving from Bangalore and people as well as online posts said that Pune is cheaper than Bangalore, but really not, I didn't find any difference in cost.

After searching a lot and not able to find a flat in budget that I was looking for, I decided to take up a un-construction flat. 

The flat building is approved by SBI for loan, so they were the first choice for Home Loan. I also applied at HDFC to be on the safer side.

Loan Applying process















HDFC loan process, approval process is great, but because of some last moment issues, I had to settle with SBI.

Believe it or not, I got loan distributed within a day, I was in Pune just for couple of days to sign the agreement and somehow the SBI agent made the loan approved in a day !, was totally surprised.

The ENTIRE loan process is manually, lots and lots of paper work, document, nothing automated.

I did not get any update from SBI on the loan disbursement, after a couple of months, I got a call from the apartment CRM team saying that they have not received the disbursement, so I contacted the agent, who asked me to contact the SBI branch manager for update.

After following up for 2-3 days, I finally got screen shot that the disbursement was made, but NO COMMUNICATION ? either to me or the builder, Rs 30 Lacks disbursement, and no communication on EMI, PRE-EMI, Disbursement date... nothing, no call, no email...

This was just the start of issues, initially the apartment was supposed to be completed within 6 months, so after 6 months of loan disbursement, the PRE-EMI was converted to FULL-EMI, again NO communication, No email, No Phone call...  I got a SMS from CIBIL score that saw my CIBIL going down by 40 points!, when logged in I checked, SBI is showing late payment. I immediately contacted customer service (which is completely useless, as the only work they have is to tell you to contact Branch), I contacted the branch, where no one picked the call. Finally I called the bank manager ( after sending 2 emails and no response), the manager told that some one else will call me to check on this issue.

The issue was resolved after following up for a week, but they did not resolve the CIBIL score, it still till date shows late payment. Again after 4 months, the same issue happened now and I am following up with SBI, this time they told me to contact some other branch !!..  

Summary -

Avoid SBI for any kind of loan as much as you can, I personally have had very poor experiences with them, I am planning to shift my home loan to some other bank ASAP.

Monday, January 31, 2022

Apple India - Online Shopping Experience

 Apple has been in India for quite sometime now but is selling through Apple Premium Resellers (Like iPlanet and others), a few years back Apple started selling in India through their website - https://www.apple.com/in/ . 

I have bought a few items from their website and the shopping experience has been great. They deliver to most of the locations (where BLUEDART is available) and shipping usually takes between 2-5 days depending on location.


The shopping experience from placing orders to packaging and delivery is just great, and you also find some exclusive products which as not available with resellers. I have been buying from Amazon India before Apple started selling and sometimes the experience was not that great as a few times I have got products that were opened (usually such opened products are sold for a lesser price, as open package). Also the reseller didn't have some products (like watch bands, Apple TV first generation remote), but now with Apple India selling directly it's great to see most of the products available.

There are offers on EMI's (no cost) but no other credit card offers apart from this (no cash back offers), one of the other exciting offers is the buy back program, which is presently available for iPhone, this gives you a far better buy back price than what Amazon, Flipkart offers. I hope Apple India adds more products to the buy back program, like Apple Watch, iPads, MackBook pro..

Overall, a really good experience, great packaging and on time delivery !, I will recommend to buy from Apple India website anytime.

Sunday, January 30, 2022

BBMP ( Bangalore ) Online KHATA Transfer Experience

During this lockdown most of us are staying away from our regular work places, so getting this done online remotely is great.

I was searching for KHATA transfer for one of the properties online for BBMP and was really happy to find that there is an ONLINE process to apply for KHATA transfer, but wait, is it really online ??

Here is my experience

I went to BBMP website - https://site.bbmp.gov.in/citizenservice.html , and from there was redirected to "Sakala Online Services" registration page, the registration process was pretty straight forward. Once you are logged in there is an option for online khata transfer 


Well, before you start you will need the SCAN of below documents that needs to be uploaded to Khata Transfer ( they differ from case to case, for me the property is through SALE deed, so I needed the below documents)


  1. Sale Deed
  2. Tax Receipt for present year
  3. EC
I had the Sale Deed and Tax Receipt, but current EC is something that I didn't have !. Searched again and found that you can apply for EC Online, below is the link for the same.


The registration process was again simple enough and you are allowed 10 searches in a day. Once you are happy with search results, you have to make ONLINE payment of Rs 110 and then wait for 2-3 days to download the Digitally Signed EC ( please note use FIREFOX BROWSER). The whole process was seamless, with your ADHAAR as your signed identity and I did get by Digital EC in 3 days !.. very happy with the EC process, no bribes.

After getting the EC, I scanned everything and uploaded to the Sakala website and applied for online KHATA, I got an GSC No for my request as well.

The website mentions the following steps

  1. Documents Verification - This happened within a Day of my uploading the documents, this was done by the ARO and the status was available through website, not through SMS though
  2. Physical Inspections - This step is the tricky part, this is where your nearest BBMP office person will contact you and ask for bribe !.. I did get a call within 3-4 days and the person came to check my house said that if I need to fast track my application I need to pay money. I said I am not in any hurry, BBMP can take their time, I don't have any money to pay. I didn't see any update on my application for next 1 week and then again I got a call asking me to come to BBMP office to submit additional documents, when I went to BBMP office, they again asked for money.... .. 
  3. Preliminary report generation - After a few days the local BBMP guys submitted the report
  4. Khata Transfer Approval - The next day, I got the approval status online
  5. Payment of Fees ( 2% of Stamp Duty) - You have to got to the nearest Bengaluru ONE office, provide them with the GSC No ( Application Number), they will tell you how much to pay, keep the receipt. As soon as you pay, you can see the online status update to "Payment Done"
  6. Khata Transfer and Extract Issue - Alright, all done, within 3 weeks, I was happy that I can download the e-khata certificate and e-khata, but there is more .....

The e-khata that BBMP uploaded was BLANK ?? I was completely shocked, I again got call from BBMP guys asking me to come to their office, again pay money if I want Khata !!!!

I emailed complained to sakala@nic.in, and they were pretty responsive, but didn't help much, they said it's an error from BBMP side and they cannot correct it, I have to visit the BBMP office for Khata.

Attached is the Khata Certificate that was uploaded on sakala website.




Summary - 

Well, online application is very good initiative from BBMP, but these process gaps needs to be closed, like I can pay the fees online, not sure why I have to go to Bengaluru One office to pay and also BBMP visits should be removed from the process altogether.

This is definitely better than before, but still can be improved.