Co-ordination Committee for the festival has faced this situation in past few days while attending ward level meetings held to issue permissions.
All those Ganesh mandals held guilty for damaging roads by digging potholes to install mandaps in 2015, are sulking as Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is denying them the permissions this year. Irked over such arm-twisting, mandals have resorted to strike an emotional chord seeking public sympathy that BMC was denying them from celebrating their traditional festival.
Co-ordination Committee for the festival has faced this situation in past few days while attending ward level meetings held to issue permissions. Ward offices have started handing over reminders of when they started applying for permissions. As of now, Co-ordination Committee has come across 71 such cases and the numbers may increase in coming days. Sensing the gravity of the situation, since several ganesh mandals across the city may face similar situation, which would jeopardise their chances of getting permissions, the co-ordination committee has decided to deal this issue at their level rather than individual ganesh mandals fighting out their way at different ward offices.
Sandeep Gharat of Ram Maruti Road Ganesh Mandal behind Sena Bhavan in Dadar said that, ward offices had woken up from nowhere after a year and have been blaming for potholes which are not even dug by jus. "We are abiding by the BMC's guidelines for pandals on roads. But they are holding us to ransom just before 15 days of the festival,", said Gharat.
Naresh Dahibawkar, chairman of Brihanmumbai Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Samanvay Samiti, has written a letter to Snehal Ambekar – mayor of Mumbai and Ajoy Mehta – municipal commissioner, in which she has sought to resolve the issue. Dahibawkar in his letter has stated that, while BMC issuing permissions on the basis of High Court guidelines was understandable. But denying permission at the 11th hour was unfair. "What was the civic administration doing all this time? Why do they not take timely action? Several mandals have claimed that, they hadn't received any notice from the BMC until the time of issuing permissions," said Dahibawkar.
Dahibawkar said that mandals should be given a fair chance. "Many mandals have claimed that even shops had dug up roads to erect sheds during festivals, but the civic body had arbitrarily put the blame only on them, without giving them a fair chance to prove. Hence, we have demanded that permissions be given for this year and the issue of paying fines be settled after the ten day festival was over.
Anand Wagralkar, deputy municipal commissioner said that they had simply demanded the mandals to comply with all the conditions laid down by the BMC, of which, paying up penalties was one. "Penalties and permissions are two different issues. We are not going to deny permissions to any ganesh mandal. We communicate the fine amount every year after the festival gets over, that each ward office undertakes at their level. But if mandals have avoided penalties for the entire year, they cannot complain when they are facing reminders now," said Wagralkar.
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