BMC rejects 16 per cent applications for Ganesh mandals, deadline extended till today

For this year, BMC has advised processions for visarjan and bringing of the idol to the mandals to avoid 12 bridges, which it has declared dangerous. These include the Ghatkopar railway bridge, the currey road railway bridge, the Arthur Road railway bridge, the Byculla railway bridge, the Marine Lines railway bridge, the Sandhurst road railway bridge, the French railway bridge at Granst road, the Kennedy bridge and Faufland Bridge at Grant Road and the Prabhadevi Bridge.

The BJP has urged BMC to reconsider the rejected permissions for Ganesh mandals. BJP Mumbai president Ashish Shelar took to social media on Thursday and said, “If BMC does not have justifiable reasons to reject permissions to such mandals, they should be reconsidered.”

Of the 2,779 applications received by the civic body this year, 445 were rejected in various rounds of scrutiny, including a no-objection certificate from the traffic police, Mumbai police and the Mumbai Fire Brigade. Permissions for 291 applications are stuck at various stages. There were 533 duplicate applications this year.
Last year, the BMC had received 2,507 applications of which 2,048 were approved and in 2020, it received 2,315 applications of which 1,912 were approved. In 2019, the BMC had received 3,064 applications of which 2,615 were approved.

The BMC usually approves between 80 and 85 per cent of the applications for mandal erections each year, according to data from the civic body. A senior civic official said, “The 10 per cent or so pending applications will be approved in time before the festival.”