Two auto-rickshaw drivers waiting for their next trip, a petrol pump employee waiting to get back to his baby at home, and a taxi driver standing under the shade to shield himself from the sudden rain. None of them knew that these were the final few moments of their lives.
These are four of the 16 people who died when a massive 120×120 square foot “illegal” hoarding collapsed in Mumbai’s Ghatkopar area amid a spell of strong gusty winds on Monday. Seventy-five others were injured.
Monday’s mishap took place despite multiple hearings in the Bombay High Court on seeking action against illegal hoardings in the city over the years. The court has given specific directives to the Maharashtra government and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to take action against such hoardings. The discourse has, however, centred around illegal political hoardings defacing the city or blocking roads and footpaths and not safety and their structural stability.
That is why Mumbai’s Illegal hoardings is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.
Ego Media Private Limited, the company that had erected the illegal hoarding, had three FIRs registered against it for illegally hacking trees that were obstructing its billboards.
There have often been reports of the city’s trees falling victim to advertisers’ greed—they’re illegally cut, or poisoned to death because they obstruct a particular hoarding. FIRs have been registered, but there’s not been any punitive action beyond paltry fines.
This time, the victims were people and it has jolted the entire administration. It has also exposed the cracks between the many agencies that govern different parts of Mumbai.
As per the BMC, there are 1,025 officially approved hoardings in the city right now. However, any person who lives in Mumbai can tell you that number is a ludicrous underestimate.
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Court hearings about defacement, not safety
The Bombay High Court has been hearing petitions that call for action against illegal hoardings for over ten years now. But their structural stability has remained unaddressed.
In 2014 and 2015, the discussion was about illegal hoardings and banners defacing public and private properties rather than about safety or the cost to the environment. Political parties were found to be the biggest offenders and the high court asked all major parties to submit undertakings in affidavits assuring the court that their leaders and workers would not put up illegal hoardings, banners or posters.
At the time, the court appointed a team of lawyers to act as ‘commissioners’. Their duty was to identify illegal posters and banners across the state.
In 2017, the Bombay High Court issued detailed directives on tackling illegal hoardings to the various stakeholders. State police were directed to ensure that civic bodies get appropriate protection, while taking action against illegal hoardings. They were also asked to keep constant vigil to prevent the erection of illegal hoardings and banners.
Civic bodies were told to set up toll-free numbers for citizens to register their complaints about illegal hoardings as well as cell phone numbers for complaints through WhatsApp or SMS. Any complaints were to be registered as an offence under the Maharashtra Prevention of Defacement of Property Act 1995.
The order directed the state government to come up with a detailed procedure for approving permission for hoardings and sky signs and further stated that all such hoardings should display the permission number and the duration for which permission has been granted.
The Bombay High Court has time and again pulled up the Maharashtra government and the state’s civic bodies for not following the guidelines in letter and spirit.
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Constant blame game
Multiple agencies govern different jurisdictions of Mumbai. A large part of the city is under the BMC, then there are some areas under the administrative control of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, others under the Mumbai Port Trust, and some under the Central Railway and other agencies.
As a result, every time there is a mishap in Mumbai—whether it was the 2017 Elphinstone Road stampede, the 2018 Gokhale bridge collapse, the umpteen times that the city has flooded due to heavy rains, or the gaffe in rebuilding the bridge earlier this year—it always involves a blame game.
The crash of the Ghatkopar hoarding, which the BMC maintains was illegal, was no exception. This time, the blame was passed around by BMC and the railway.
Immediately after the disaster, BMC claimed that the hoarding was illegal and situated on railway land. The Central Railway denied that it owned the land. Later, the Government Railway Police, which comes under the state government, said that the hoarding was under its jurisdiction and was approved in November 2022.
In a welcome move, the BMC has now taken a strong stand. All hoardings in the city must mandatorily follow the civic body’s norms irrespective of whether they are on any public land or private land. It announced on Thursday that fresh permissions for hoardings have been put on hold and that it will revisit the hoardings policy to incorporate stringent provisions related to the size and structural stability of hoardings.
The tragedy has also stirred municipal corporations in other parts of the country to take stock of hoardings in their cities.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)