Pandal norms framed at last

These norms having been laid down by Police Commissioner K K Kashyap for the entire police commissionerate, executive members of the ECF on Monday called on Pune Municipal Commissioner Rajiv Agarwal with a request to adopt a similar set of norms.

Nafday said the forum has urged the Police Commissioner to give wide publicity immediately and the Pune Municipal Commissioner to adopt similar rules and give them wide publicity so that festival volunteers are informed about these well in advance of the festivities.

It was pointed out that the common grievance of the workers of several Ganesh mandals last year was that that they are given inadequate notice about the rules on pandal sizes, while they plan their festivities including the dimensions of the tableaux and decorations two or three months beforehand.

The ECF executive members today said that a gradual change in the attitude of the mandal workers was evident during the past couple of years.

They are not in principle opposed to reducing the size of the pandals since being social workers and are also fully aware of the inconvenience caused to the citizens at large. Thus, it was felt that sufficient notice be given to them through wide publicity of the rules, she added.

The pandal norms enforced by the Police Commissioner are applicable to all festivals of different faiths and cultural events. The forum pledged to strive for enforcement of these rules by the authorities for all festivals and to act as a watchdog on behalf of the citizens.

The forum has also requested Municipal Commissioner Rajiv Agarwal to ensure single window clearance of pandal permissions to festival mandals at the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to avoid inconvenience to the volunteers. For this, police officials with specific delegated authority from the Police Commissioner may be invited to be present at the PMC before the festival so that the mandal workers do not have to run from pillar to post.

Under section 234 of the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation (BPMC) Act, it is the Municipal Commissioner who grants permission for erection of temporary booths and pandals on public streets, but he has to do this with the concurrence from the police commissioner. The forum approached the Police Commissioner first so that a uniform set of rules could be applied to both the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal corporations, and Pune and Khadki cantonments.

As for the Ganesh festival, the ECF was of the opinion that the 10 prestigious mandals in downtown could be exempted from the rules, Nafday said. He expressed confidence that workers of these mandals would observe some norms on their own to avoid inconvenience to public.

It may be recalled here that the ECF has been striving since 1995 to have some norms framed by the authorities for the size of pandals on public streets in view of the enormous increase in vehicular traffic in Pune with negligible corresponding increase in available road space.

The Police Commissioner recently framed rules which restrict the size of a pandal so that it will not occupy more than one-third of the carriage-width of the road and not face the centre line of the road so that spectators do not block additional carriage-width, besides, it will not be erected within 10 metres of a road junction.

Gen Y D Sahasrabuddhe (Retd) has appealed the mandal workers to take note of the rules framed by the authorities and plan their decorations accordingly, even while pledging that it would strive for the enforcement of these rules for all festivals and to act as a watchdog on behalf of the citizens.