If your vehicle has been lying unattended for a long period, even on inner residential streets, beware: it might get towed away. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is strengthening its mechanism to remove abandoned vehicles form roads.
From January 1, the BMC will add four towing vans to its existing fleet of six. The corporation will also decentralise the system to assign vans, to make it more efficient. At present, a central network assigns vans to the city and the eastern and western suburbs. Soon, the BMC will allot towing vans at the zonal level, thus increasing their ability to reach different corners of the city.
Additional vans will be allotted to zones with high density of vehicles, including Zone 2 (Parel and Dadar), Zone 4 (Andheri (West) and Malad) and Zone 5 (around Chembur and Kurla).
Hygiene worry
Abandoned vehicles do not include those in no-parking zones, which are dealt with by the traffic police.
Vehicles lying unattended on roads tend to become eyesores, but the municipal corporation acts against them because they become a public hygiene worry.
The vehicles tend to turn into mosquito-breeding sites after water accumulates in them. Madhukar Magar, Assistant Municipal Commissioner (Removal of Encroachments, City), said, “These vehicles block the cleaning of roads, which causes garbage to accumulate around them. We generally give priority to public complaints in such cases.”
Revenue source
This year, the corporation earned ₹1.68 crore between January and October from abandoned vehicles.
The BMC sticks notices on the vehicles, asking owners to move them. If this is not done within 48 hours, it seizes them. It collects fines from owners who show up at its godowns to claim the vehicles. If no claimants come forward within 30 days, the vehicles are auctioned.
Till October, the BMC seized 1,295 two-wheelers, 245 three-wheelers and 695 four-wheelers. It collected ₹30.96 lakh in fines from owners. It earned ₹41.32 lakh when it auctioned off 2,339 vehicles in March, and ₹95.96 lakh from an auction of 2,747 vehicles in August. Citizens can report such vehicles on www.mcgm.gov.in or portal.mcgm.gov.in
