Ganpati pandals: Mumbai civic body extends deadline to apply to September 2

A day after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) announced that it had extended the deadline for Ganesh pandal applications to August 31, it has now further extended the deadline to September 2. The initial deadline for online applications was Tuesday. In a press conference held on Wednesday, BMC said that it will clear 452 pandals application, 23% of the total applications received this year, within the next two days.

BMC received a total of 2,694 online applications for setting up pandals on roads and footpaths. Of these, 594 applications were rejected owing to multiple applications filed for the same pandal. Of the remaining 2,100 applications, 1,425 have been approved and 223 rejected by the civic body. The remaining 452 are pending with the traffic police and local police, as well as the civic body.

This year, the civic body had introduced a single-window online application system, which is linked with the traffic and police department. After the application is submitted, it is forwarded to ward offices, traffic and police department to be approved within three days. However, many applications were cancelled owing to lack of documents while other were rejected following encroachment of footpaths.

Narendra Barde, deputy municipal commissioner, zone 2, said, “Mandals whose application have been rejected can resubmit the application with the requisite documents or after making the recommended changes such as reducing pandals size if it was encroaching roads or footpaths.” According to the guidelines, mandals need to submit a self-certified declaration regarding fire safety compliance on a ₹500 stamp paper to the ward authority.

The declaration should state that it would be the sole responsibility of organisers to comply with all fire safety measures under section 3 (3) of the Maharashtra Fire Prevention and Life Safety Measures Act, 2006. The rule regarding self-certification had irked organisers across city.