PUNE: Many marriage halls have cropped up in the city in the past decade. However, most of them have not taken due permission from the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). Yet, their owners are not afraid of action by the civic administration.
Though civic officials admitted that there are 125 such halls, they have not taken any action against these halls.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) corporator from Warje Sushil Mengade, who is also the Chairman of the City Improvement Committee (CIC), wrote a letter to the civic administration on the issue. In reply, the PMC Health Department stated that there are 125 halls which didn’t seek permission from the department.
Usually, marriage halls’ owners need to take permission from the Building Permission Department, the Water Supply Department, the Fire Department and the Health Department. The Building and Water Supply Departments’ permissions are mandatory while the fire NOC is not mandatory.
Speaking about the issue, Vaishali Jadhav of the Health Department told Sakal Times, “Our department is the last one in the order to issue a permission to marriage halls. However, we have observed that hall owners don’t take permissions from other departments. So, we didn’t issue permission to these 125 halls. Till date, we have not taken any action against them. Now, I have directed all ward offices to serve notices to these hall owners. Later, we will recover fine and file cases against them.”
Prashant Ranpise, Fire Chief of the PMC, said, “Under the Municipal Corporation Act, nothing is mentioned about the mandatory fire NOC. So, most of marriage hall owners don’t take permission from us.
There was only one fire incident reported at a hall on Satara Road a decade ago.” A senior official of the Building Permission Department said, “There are some marriage halls which have no parking space. In the past, we approved plans of halls only on two conditions: a hall should have a minimum area of 20,000 sq ft and there should be a 15-metre corporation road near a hall. For the new Development Plan roads, they have increased this area from 20,000 sq ft to 40,000 sq ft, along with provision for parking.”
