Mumbai: BMC Puts Hold on New Hoarding Permits Amidst Surge in Digital Upgrade Requests

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has ceased granting new permissions for hoardings within the city. However, despite this halt, the civic body has received approximately 15 applications seeking to convert conventional hoardings into digital ones. Currently, these applications have been put on hold.

According to the BMC, a total of 1,025 hoardings have licenses under its jurisdiction. Of these, 573 are illuminated, 382 are non-illuminated, and the remaining 70 use LED lights. Andheri (West) has the highest number of hoardings with 134, followed by Khar with 129 hoardings. Mulund, Fort, Colaba, and adjoining areas have the least number of licensed hoardings.

A senior official from the License Department of BMC informed that in the last few months, the civic body had received around 15 applications to convert non-illuminated hoardings into illuminated ones. “Since there has been no policy in place for such changes, these applications were not granted permission,” said the official.

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After the Ghatkopar incident involving the collapse of a hoarding, the BMC has stopped issuing new permissions. At present, the civic body is drafting a new policy for granting these permissions.

The official informed that there are no plans to increase the number of existing licensed hoardings. “The number of licensed hoardings will remain the same and there will be no change in it,” said the official.

In case someone wants to set up digital or illuminated hoardings, the only way is to change the existing ones. “Once the policy is in place, the civic body will make a decision,” said the official.

A committee has been formed for drafting a new digital hoarding policy which will be separate from hoarding policy.

According to the official, there will be no hoardings on footpaths. Additionally, the Traffic Department does not want digital hoardings at traffic signals and on road dividers. "The city does not have much space to allow more hoardings," said the official.

Currently, the areas of Andheri, Marol, Jogeshwari (W), Juhu, and Vile Parle have the highest number of LED hoardings, with 28 out of the total 70 LED hoardings located there.