Lokmat News Network
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
The key question is who should remove the dangerous hoardings hanging at every junction and along major roads in the city. “Those who created the mess must clean it up themselves,” said Mayor Sameer Rajurkar and Municipal Commissioner G Sreekanth while speaking to the newspaper. They made it clear that the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation (CSMC) will not assign hazardous tasks to its Class IV employees merely to serve the publicity interests of political leaders and workers. “One innocent employee has lost his life. No more lives should be sacrificed because of this,” they stressed.
On February 21, Amol Jadhav, a Class IV sanitary employee, died from an electric shock while removing an unauthorised hoarding in Mukundwadi. Following this incident, the issue of illegal hoardings in the city has come under serious scrutiny. Even today, an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 hoardings are displayed at various locations across the city. Some of these are installed at extremely hazardous spots, posing a serious risk of accidents during removal.
These hoardings have been mounted on MSEDCL electricity poles, municipal streetlight poles, and power distribution transformer (DP) poles. If an untrained individual attempts to remove such illegal hoardings, there is a high risk of electrocution. On Monday, the municipal corporation issued a 24-hour deadline directing those who had installed unauthorised hoardings to remove them voluntarily. The 24-hour period ended on Tuesday evening.
Cases will be registered
“The CSMC will absolutely not remove dangerous hoardings. Those who put them up must remove them. Otherwise, we will register criminal cases against them. Over the past eight days, sufficient time has already been given to those responsible for installing unauthorised hoardings. The civic employees will not risk their lives to remove any such structures. Hoardings installed at ordinary locations may be removed by municipal sanitation workers, but dangerous ones will certainly not be removed by us,” said the municipal commissioner.
One life has been lost
“An innocent employee, Amol Jadhav, died due to electrocution while removing an illegal hoarding. How many more lives are we expected to sacrifice? Life is important — not hoardings. The hoardings must be removed, but not at the cost of endangering Class IV employees. A detailed discussion has been held with the civic chief on this issue, and he has been urged to take firm action regarding the hoardings,” said the mayor.