Tree’s a crowd for Ganesh mandals

After potholes, mandals haul up BMC over untrimmed trees

Tree's a crowd for Ganesh mandals

After potholes, mandals haul up BMC over untrimmed trees

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HAVING brought up the issue of potholes and the inconvenience they will cause to devotees and organisers during the Ganpati festival, Ganesh mandals in the city are now taking on the BMC over the issue of overgrown, untrimmed trees.

Ganesh mandals contend that they will not be able to take the
idols to the pandals and for immersion properly if the overgrown
trees are not trimmed at the earliest

In meetings held at Girgaum and Shivaji Park with BMC and police officials, the mandals contended that they will not be able to take the idols to the pandals and for immersion properly if the trees are not trimmed at the earliest.
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They have even handed over a list of potholes to the BMC, which declared recently that 226 trees in the city need immediate attention.

"The BMC needs to pull up its socks. Potholes were always a major issue and now we have to deal with overgrown trees too.

They promise to prune the trees but no action is actually taken and the recent cases of people dying because of trees crushing them is proof of this.
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We have, thus, appealed to the civic body to take immediate action before the festival, which is just around the corner, is upon us," said Naresh Dahibawkar, president, Brihanmumbai Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Samanvay Samiti.

Last year, the BMC had come up with the idea of charging mandals Rs 500 for every pothole that comes up on the roads because of their pandals.u00a0

"However, even after collecting fines from erring mandals last year, the civic body did not fill the potholes," he added.

Staying safe
Dahibawkar said security is also a major issue for the mandals and it had been discussed during the meeting as well.

"Cops have asked the bigger pandals to install CCTV cameras and assured us that necessary safety training will be given to the representatives of each mandal.

We hope all our demands are met so that we can have a safe and secure Ganeshotsav this year," he said.

The Other Side
S Karvande from the BMC's garden department u00a0told MiD DAY that the u00a0respective junior ward u00a0u00a0officers are already on duty u00a0and are getting the trees which need immediate attention pruned.

"226 trees needing immediate attention were shortlisted. We have asked all our officers to get pruning done in their respective wards," he said.

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