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Now, call from your cell phone to report illegal hoardings

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Civic activists say commissioning helpline numbers will not suffice to curb the hoardings menace
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The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has launched helpline numbers for citizens to lodge complaints about illegal banners. Citizens can call on these numbers from their landline as well as cell phones and register complaints.

Hearing a case the Bombay high court on August 6 last year had ordered the civic body to make available helpline numbers where residents can file complaints regarding banners/hoardings/cut-outs, etc. Accordingly, BMC had commissioned services on two numbers — 1292 and 1293 — where residents can make complaints using Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) landline phones. The corporation has extended the service to mobile phones too.

To avail the service using cell phones, one will require to dial the number 022-2269 followed by 1292 or 1293. The service on these numbers is commissioned even as the corporation offers service on paid the number 1916.

"We have received over 40 complaints regarding unauthorised posters/banners from residents after we initiated the service on landline numbers nearly a month ago. The number is expected to grow as the awareness spreads," said Sharad Bande, BMC's superintendent of license.

Bande said that of the total complaints received, a majority are related to political and commercial hoardings. "We request people to use the service and help us take action," he added.

Meanwhile, civic activists have said commissioning helpline numbers will not suffice to curb the hoardings menace. "Launching helpline numbers is alright. But the civic body will have to see that action is taken on the complaints. And the helpline service will make sense only when that information is made available to citizens. Also, staffers who do not act on complaint must be taken to task," said Raj Kumar Sharma, who heads Almanac, a Chembur-based citizens' group.

Sharma, however, added that it was the responsibility of the civic body to take action against illegal banners/posters/hoardings on its own rather than citizens reporting about them. "The onus of taking action is on the civic staff. Can't they see the city being defaced," he asked.

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