Overview
- Departments have been directed to implement a unified statewide hoarding policy within a month, with municipal bodies empowered to remove illegal structures and act as final licensing authorities.
- The new norms cap billboard size at 40x40 feet, bar installations on terraces and compound walls, and set ground-clearance limits between 11 and 60 feet with pre-installation compliance checks.
- The inquiry cited criminal conspiracy involving suspended IPS officer Quaiser (Kaisar) Khalid, BMC official Sunil Dalvi, Ego Media directors Bhavesh Bhinde and Janhavi Marathe, and businessman Mohammed Arshad Khan, including an alleged Rs 84 lakh cash transaction and a Rs 45 lakh unsecured loan.
- The panel detailed how state land was misclassified as railway property to evade BMC rules, with hoardings erected without structural stability certificates and tender violations that included denying rival Qicom and approving a fourth, oversized hoarding.
- Accountability and enforcement have begun, with departmental inquiries against former GRP commissioners Khalid and Dr Ravindra Shisve, Khalid’s suspension, a BMC drive removing 11,563 illegal banners, and the SHRC flagging serious lapses by BMC officials as a human-rights concern.