PUNE, July 13: Shiv Sena city unit has opposed the Pune municipal administration's plan to impose fresh norms on size of pandals coming up on city roads during the annual Ganesh festival.A Sena delegation led by standing committee chairman Ramesh Bodke today met civic chief Rajiv Agarwal and demanded that the administration give a second thought before adopting the norms framed by the Pune police commissionerate.Bodke later told media persons that he would also meet Police Commissioner K K Kashyap this week and urge him to allow pandal sizes equivalent to the extent permitted by the police and civic authorities last year.He cited religious sentiments of the Ganpati mandal volunteers along with the significance of the festival, which attracts tourists from various parts of the country and foreign countries, as reasons for the Sena's opposition to any fresh norms being imposed on the 10-day festivities.Bodke claimed that many Ganpati mandal volunteers were conscious about the fallout of the pandal sizes on the movement of traffic and had already shown inclination towards self-discipline.He expressed the fear that the imposition of fresh norms would disturb the Ganpati mandal volunteers leading to unnecessary confrontations with the authorities.Agarwal had last week released the fresh norms abiding by directives from the Bombay High Court in the matter. Subsequently, the municipal administration published the norms through an advertisement in a local daily today.According to the norms, a pandal will not occupy more than 10-feet of a 25-feet wide road, thus leaving 15-feet for vehicular traffic; not more than 20-feet on a 50-feet wide road leaving 30-feet for traffic movement and not more than 30-feet on a 70-feet wide road.Prior to this, the Police Commissioner had laid down that all pandals on public roads should not occupy more than one-third of the carriagewidth and that no pandals will be allowed within 10-meter of a road junction. The police chief had also issued a directive that the pandal will not face the road but instead face the direction in which the traffic flows on the road so as to avoid obstruction to vehicular movement.It may be recalled here that the Express Citizens' Forum (ECF) had been striving since 1995 to have some norms framed by the civic and police authorities on the size of pandals coming up on public roads in view of the enormous increase in vehicular traffic in Pune with negligible corresponding increase in available carriageways.
