The city is often defaced by unauthorised political, religious and commercial hoardings, which are not only reported on the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC's) toll-free numbers, but such eyesores are also periodically removed by the civic body. Despite that, prosecution in these cases remains abysmally low.
Records obtained from the civic licence department show in January this year, FIRs under the Maharashtra Prevention of Defacement of Property Act, 1995 were filed in only 45 of the 194 cases. In February, the figure went down to only 14 whereas a total of 129 defacement cases were reported during the month. In March, only two FIRs were registered in 82 cases.
Following the Bombay High Court order, the BMC has appointed nodal officers in every ward to keep a check on unauthorised hoardings. The two toll-free numbers, 1292 and 1293, were started in December last year for receiving complaints in such cases.
A senior civic official said, "There is a manpower crunch. Only two officers in every ward go out on removal drives every day. It takes 20 minutes to remove a hoarding and so removing hoardings from the entire ward takes a lot of time."
That's not all. According to the official, most hoardings or banners which are put up do not carry the name of the person who put it up. "As a result, we find it difficult to locate the offender and thus registering police complaints in such cases doesn't happen. Therefore, we end up just removing such hoardings," he explained.
