MUMBAI, INDIA, July 11, 2011 (DNA India): The famous Ganpati mandals, essential to the celebrations of Ganesha Chaturthi in Mumbai, are required to get permissions from a number of government bodies. They need to approach the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) ward office concerned and the fire brigade for permission to set up a pandal. The permission of the traffic police is needed for the immersion procession. They further need to approach the local police before using loudspeakers. In some cases, an approval from the public works department is also needed. But that is about to change.
“The whole procedure takes one month. One often gets caught in tussles between agencies,” said Narendra Dahibavkar, president of the Ganeshotsav Samanvay Samiti, a coordination committee of Ganpati mandals. The committee met today municipal commissioner Aseem Gupta, who sanctioned that the BMC will start an online system to obtain the necessary permissions.
“There are 11,920 big Ganesha mandals across the city. The online system will help save the time of these agencies as well as that of the mandals,” Dahibavkar said.