TOI : BMC proposal winks at political hoardings in city : Sept 30, 2007
BMC proposal winks at political hoardings in city
Shalini Nair I TNN
Mumbai: As the BMC gets ready to release the final draft of its hoarding
policy next week, it might just fall flat on its efforts to maintain an
uncluttered skyline. The reason being that the policy has left the issue of
political banners untouched.
While there are 2,000-odd authorised commercial hoardings in the city,
political banners/cloth boards greeting party bosses or wishing residents
during festivals outnumber them by several thousands. Since they are put up
on a temporary basis (at least on paper), they do not even spare heritage
precincts. They end up being an eyesore and a hurdle to pedestrians and
traffic movement, say residents.
A 2004 BMC circular restricts the number of political banners by a
single political party to ten in one ward at a time. The maximum size
allowed is 10 ftx3ft and it can be put up for not more than three days. At
any given time, the city cannot have more than 100 political banners. “All
rules are flouted, many of the banners are over 30 ft in height posing a
hindrance to traffic,” said gynaecologist Anahita Pundole, who had taken
the BMC to court for allowing illegal hoardings to come up. Political
parties have to pay a ground rent of Rs 500 and a security deposit of Rs
100, which they forfeit in case they do not remove the hoardings on time.
“But for every Rs 100 that the BMC gets, it ends up spending ten times
the amount on manpower and machinery required to remove these,” said
Bhagwanji Raiyani, another petitioner who had particularly challenged the
mushrooming of political banners.
To make matters worse, this Ganeshotsav, BMC had relaxed all restriction
on banners near pandals resulting in politicians capitalising on the move.
“In a single road in Diamond Garden at Chembur itself there were around ten
huge political banners. At the immersion spots, the scene was even more
pathetic,” said Rajkumar Sharma, AGNI coordinator from the
Chembur-Ghatkopar area.
Juhu corporator Adolf D’Souza admits that he himself has had to fight a
losing battle against this nuisance.
“During our ward’s prabhat samiti meetings I have tried telling other
corporators to restrict the political banners in their wards, but they do
not welcome this idea. All I can do for now is try to see to it that my area
is free of these. But during the Ganesh festival, even the BMC license
inspector showed great reluctance to crack down on these,” he said. D’Souza
along with other citizens from Juhu have suggested that the BMC should make
it compulsory for all political hoardings to display in bold their licence
number and period for which it is allowed to be put up.
EYESORE: The political banners outnumber commercial ones
Publication:Times Of India Mumbai; Date:Sep 30, 2007; Section:Times City;
Page Number:4