In the lead-up to the Mumbai Ganesh visarjan on Friday 9 September, Approx 3200 officers,15500 policemen, 8 Srpf Companies, 1 RAF Company, 1 Force One Company, 750 Homeguard
250 Trainees and over 20,000 police force deployed to manage visarjan processions on 9 September the last day of festival in Mumbai.
After a gap of two years, there will be heavy police bandobast across Mumbai on Friday when lakhs of people will throng the streets to see and join the immersion processions of the deity’s idols, which marks the end of the ten-day Ganesh festival.
Besides the major Visarjan points like Girgaon Chowpatty, Shivaji Park, Juhu and Malad, the police said there are 73 natural lakes and 162 artificial ponds made by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) where the immersion of household Ganesh idols will take place.
The Mumbai police like every year have undertaken all out operations to crack down on anti-social elements, combing operations in hotels and guest houses and putting up nakabandis to check the vehicles carrying suspicious materials.
According to DCP (Operations) Sanjay Latkar all out operations, combing operations and nakabandis are being done regularly and are being done more frequently due to the Ganesh Utsav,” said DCP (Operations) Sanjay Latkar.
The police will also make use of drones to monitor and maintain the crowd. They will be making use of megaphones and loudspeakers to guide the crowd and to provide update on the missing people, especially children.
The traffic police have placed barricades on the roads to segregate the crowd from the vehicles to prevent any untoward incident. They have also set up five traffic police control rooms at important immersion places — Girgaon Chowpatty (beach), Shivaji Park Chowpatty, Juhu Chowpatty, Malad Malwani T Junction and Ganesh Ghat, Powai.
Further, watch towers are being erected by the traffic police at strategic places to ensure the smooth flow of traffic. They have also kept police cranes, BMC cranes and high-capacity cranes to remove the vehicles in case they break down creating a jam.
The traffic restrictions will be in place from 12 pm Friday till 6 am the next day. There will be parking restrictions at 114 places, goods vehicles will be banned on 57 roads, 74 roads will be shut, 54 roads will have one way traffic movement and another 74 roads will be shut for vehicular traffic.
Apart from traffic restrictions, the traffic police have also cautioned the Ganpati mandals and devotees, who will be part of the arrival and immersion procession of Ganesh idols, about a list of bridges which have become old and dangerous.
As per Traffic Police Officer all Ganesh devotees and mandals are informed that the bridges on the railways have become old and dangerous. Therefore, all devotees should take care
These bridges are Curry Road (overbridge), Arthur Road (overbridge) and Chinchpokli (rail overbridge) where the weight should not be more than 16 tons at a time.
The other rail overbridges mentioned on the list are Ghatkopar bridge, Byculla bridge, Marine lines bridge, Sandhurst road bridge, French bridge, Kennedy bridge, Falkland bridge, Belasis bridge, Mahalaxmi bridge, Prabhadevi bridge and Dadar Tilak bridge.
News Edit: K.V.Raman
