BMC defaces its own heritage building

‘This building is under CCTV surveillance’— shout ugly, big, black and white stickers defacing the heritage Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation headquarters.

‘This building is under CCTV surveillance’— shout ugly, big, black and white stickers defacing the heritage Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation headquarters.

HT Image

The three feet long stickers have been placed randomly inside the heritage structure by the civic body itself.

For security reasons, the municipal corporation has CCTVs installed in the corridors of the building premises since August 2008. As per the rules, it is mandatory to put up a notice declaring the existence of cameras and that the activities are being taped.

Joint Municipal Commissioner, S.S. Shinde said: “The idea behind the stickers is to tell the employees that they are under vigilance and they should behave. Such messages need to be bold and not necessarily colorful. So we decided to put up big stickers.”

But BMC employees were not happy with the huge stickers. They said that the stickers only ruined the look of the building and should be removed or replaced with smaller ones.

“We have to put up these notices so that people don’t to being filmed without being intimated,” said Ashish Singh, Additional Municipal Commissioner, also in charge of security.

However, after speaking to Hindustan Times he agreed that the stickers were too big and disfigured the heritage structure.

“I was not involved in the decision of putting these stickers. There is a need to put the message but it has to be a little subtle,” Singh added. “We will now reduce the size of the stickers and put it at right places.”