The incident in Mumbai, on May 13, 2024, where a giant outdoor hoarding collapsed in a widespread dust storm leaving at least 16 people dead and over 70 people injured has led to serious questions. The billboard was installed without authorisation from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). After the accident, the BMC has said that action would be taken against those who have put up illegal hoardings in the city.
This post-facto response is a lack-lustre reaction, especially when deaths caused by illegal hoardings are not new in India. Just days after this incident, a hoarding collapsed on on the Pune-Solapur highway, following rain, injuring an animal. In May 2023, again in Pune, an unauthorised hoarding collapsed leaving five people dead. And in June 2023, three workers were crushed when the huge hoarding that they were erecting collapsed at Thekkalur near Karumathampatti in Coimbatore district.
In the case of the Mumbai incident, that a hoarding nine times the permissible size was allowed to remain until it collapsed indicates a lack of oversight on the part of the BMC. A review of outdoor advertisement policies across different cities in India shows that these policies have very little to offer with respect to time-bound action against illegal hoardings.
