Nagpur civic body gets 1,450 Ganesh pandal applications, fire NOC in focus
Nagpur Municipal Corporation has received 1,450 applications for Ganeshotsav pandal permissions, with fire safety clearances outnumbering police and traffic NOCs
Preparations for Ganeshotsav are in full swing in Nagpur, with pandals coming up across the city. A report issued under the Nagpur Municipal Corporation's Right to Service shows that a total of 1,450 applications for Ganesh pandal permission have been received since August 25.
Of these, the civic body has issued final NOCs for 757 applications, meaning about 52.2 percent of cases have been cleared. Another 321 applications, or 22.1 percent, have been rejected. The remaining 372 applications, about 25.7 percent, are still in process.
Getting an NOC for a pandal is not easy. Ganesh mandals must clear three separate approvals from the police, traffic and fire departments before getting permission. So far, 974 police NOCs, 990 traffic NOCs and 1,119 fire NOCs have been issued. The fire NOC count is higher than both police and traffic NOCs, showing that fire safety arrangements at pandals are getting particular scrutiny this time.
Among the corporation's 10 zones, Dhantoli zone has received the fewest applications, 75 in total. Of these, 41 are still in process and only 4 have been rejected. This zone has issued 45 police NOCs, 45 traffic NOCs and 40 fire NOCs, while 30 applications have received final approval.
Zone-wise, the most rejections have come from Dharampeth zone, where 79 applications were turned down. This was followed by Hanuman Nagar with 42, Ashi Nagar with 38, Lakadganj with 36, Mangalwari with 31, Nehru Nagar with 30 and Satranjipura with 28 rejections. Gandhibagh zone saw 24 applications rejected, Laxminagar 9, and Dhantoli only 4.
The corporation's report also lists a separate category called "black applications," with 21 applications in it. All 21 are shown as still in process, and none of them has yet received a police, traffic police or fire NOC, nor a final NOC.
With about a quarter of applications still pending, attention will remain on the action taken by the corporation and the police, traffic and fire departments in the coming days, since these 372 applications need to be cleared before Ganeshotsav begins.
