BMC to give high court details of removed illegal hoadings

Acting upon the Bombay High Court order of February 21, the licence department of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will be filing an affidavit on Friday, providing details of illegal hoardings, posters and other advertising structures removed by them.

The department will also mention details of the nature of complaints received by them on such illegal hoardings and the action taken to address those complaints.

According to the data provided by the department, BMC has removed 7,131 illegal banners and boards from January to March 12, a majority of which were political. As many as 2,548 political banners, 667 boards, 437 posters, 1,160 flags and 36 wall defacement were cleared — which a make a total of 4,848 out of the 7,131. The rest comprised 1,940 posters in the religion category and 343 in commercial.

Sharad Bande, superintendent of licences, dismissed the notion that the civic body is rushing up the work because of the March 14 affidavit deadline set by the court. He said, "It is a continuous process that goes on round the year. Removal of illegal hoardings and banners is part of our regular duty," he said.

According to the data provided by the department, a whopping 30,865 illegal banners, posters and boards were removed last year by the civic body — a majority of them were
political.

Several banners and posters, which were coming back despite repeated removal, were sent to the legal department for a decision on the fine amount. K-West ward featured the highest number of such cases — 734 — from January 2013 till date, followed closely by K-East ward with 565 cases. P-South ward had no zero such cases. Across all 24 wards, 3,087 cases were filed.

In terms of letters sent to the police for filing of FIRs against habitual errants parties, K-East ward featured on the top with 188 such cases. A total of 1,216 such letters were sent to the respective police stations across all wards.

Civic activist Aftab Siddique, however, said that sending letters to file FIRs against the errant parties is not enough. "The civic body hasn't registered a single FIR, whereas it is their duty to file FIRs," she said.

According to the data provided by the department, BMC has removed 7,131 illegal banners and boards from January to March 12, a majority of which were political. As many as 2,548 political banners, 667 boards, 437 posters, 1,160 flags and 36 wall defacement were cleared — which a make a total of 4,848 out of the 7,131. The rest comprised 1,940 posters in the religion category and 343 in commercial.