After billboard collapse, BMC to take down remaining hoardings on GRP land

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will on Tuesday, 14 May, start taking down the remaining hoardings on Government Railway Police (GRP) land at Chheda Nagar in the eastern part of Mumbai, where 14 people lost their lives after a billboard collapsed during a dust storm, an official said.

At least 14 persons were killed and 74 injured after a 100-feet-tall illegal billboard fell at a petrol pump in Ghatkopar during dust storms and unseasonal rains that lashed the city on Monday.

The civic body has prepared a plan to raze the remaining hoardings on the GRP land, the official said.

The BMC had earlier said that it issued a notice to M/s Ego Media Private Limited for installing the hoarding that collapsed on the petrol pump, and the police have registered a case against the company's owner, Bhavesh Bhinde, and others for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

Talking to PTI, a senior official said the assistant municipal commissioner of the N-ward had issued a notice to an advertisement agency to remove these hoardings with immediate effect, but the civic body has not received any response so far.

The GRP has informed that it does not have the necessary equipment to remove the remaining hoardings and requested the BMC to take them down, he said.

The hoardings are erected back to back and will have to be razed one after the other, the official said, without specifying the timeframe for the demolition.

Another civic official said the hoardings were located along the Eastern Express Highway, which connects Mumbai with Thane.

They are placed about 100-150 meters away from each other, he said.

Though the BMC allows holdings of a maximum size of 40x40 square feet, the illegal hoarding that collapsed measured 120x120 square feet.