{"id":40978,"date":"2024-05-19T05:03:33","date_gmt":"2024-05-18T23:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=40978"},"modified":"2025-04-25T08:23:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T02:53:47","slug":"takeaways-from-mumbai-hoarding-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/takeaways-from-mumbai-hoarding-tragedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Takeaways from Mumbai Hoarding Tragedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in News?<\/li>\n<li>What Safety Norms Apply to Hoardings?<\/li>\n<li>What Led to Ghatkopar Incident?<\/li>\n<li>Who is Legally Responsible for the Ghatkopar Incident?<\/li>\n<li>What Needs to be Done to Avoid Ghatkopar like Incidents?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>\u00a0Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>At least 16 people were killed when a massive 250-tonne advertisement hoarding (on Government Railway Police land) in Mumbai&#8217;s Ghatkopar collapsed during a dust storm.<\/li>\n<li>In the wake of this tragedy, it is important to examine the safety regulations pertaining to hoardings and who is legally responsible for the event.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>What Safety Norms Apply to Hoardings?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Local bodies issue licences for advertisement hoardings.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>In Mumbai\u2019s case<\/strong>,\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Mumbai Municipal Corporation (MMC) Act 1888<\/strong> (amended over time) stipulates that written permission of the Municipal Commissioner is needed for erecting such structures.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Policy Guidelines for Display of Advertisements 2018<\/strong> makes structural stability certification from a registered structural engineer a condition for putting up hoardings.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The policy guidelines <\/strong>also say hoardings existing as of May 1, 2014 should be reinstalled incorporating structural stability requirements.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>From a technical perspective, <\/strong>the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) lays out specifications for wind loads on hoardings.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>It gives formulae<\/strong> on how to calculate the force coefficients applicable to these wind-facing structures.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>What Led to Ghatkopar Incident?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The massive hoarding did not meet size norms:<\/strong> But was not brought down by official agencies in spite of being a highly visible hazardous structure.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Safety norms were apparently liberalised:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>This was done through the Policy Guidelines for Display of Advertisements 2018 to tap the city\u2019s full financial potential.<\/li>\n<li>Also, the MMC Act 1888 provides some regulatory exemptions to hoardings on railway land.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Administrative lethargy:<\/strong> The Government Railway Police cited an ongoing dispute with the Corporation for not enforcing the safety laws on hoardings.<\/li>\n<li><strong>No database of permits available:<\/strong> For example, no database of permits could be located on the BMC website in the hoardings section.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Extreme weather events: <\/strong>The Ghatkopar disaster demonstrates that extreme weather, such as high winds or a cyclone sweeping a city, quickly exposes the weakest infrastructure links, with deadly consequences.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Who is Legally Responsible for the Ghatkopar Incident?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The government and the owners of the private structures<\/strong> are legally responsible for the incident.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The right of passage on a public pathway <\/strong>makes several connected individuals liable for negligence in the Ghatkopar case, including\n<ul>\n<li>The owners of the land,<\/li>\n<li>The agency that put up the structure and the line officials responsible for enforcement,<\/li>\n<li>The civic officials and police who witnessed flagrant violation of rules but took no action, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>In 2022<\/strong>, the Delhi HC, after fixing the liability of a public sector bank (BoB), granted compensation in a case where a man was struck by a sign board and the head injury led to his death.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>What Needs to be Done to Avoid Ghatkopar like Incidents?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Governments have to show due diligence<\/strong> to avert harm to citizens from official actions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Capacity building <\/strong>of the administrative machinery and <strong>reducing corruption <\/strong>at the administrative level is the need of the hour.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The advent of digital boards<\/strong> has brought with it the possibility of <strong>moving displays<\/strong>, opening up avenues for different advertisers to use the same screens to show messages, raising rents for hoardings companies greatly.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The focus should be on strengthening disaster management<\/strong> practices of municipalities to deal with the fallout in crowded cities.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>In the Mumbai incident<\/strong>, the presence of a petrol pump prevented personnel from using gas cutters, thus reducing the efficiency of disaster management expertise.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>As climate change is becoming a challenge<\/strong>, the city governments need to review conventional ideas on giant outdoor open-sky hoardings put up close to human activity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"media\">\n<div data-oembed-url=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3J5z7JlieVw\">\n<div><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3J5z7JlieVw\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/cities\/mumbai\/the-takeaway-from-mumbai-hoarding-tragedy\/article68191310.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>The takeaway from Mumbai hoarding tragedy<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At least 16 people were killed when a massive advertisement hoarding in Mumbai&#8217;s Ghatkopar collapsed during a dust storm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":40979,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}