22 January,2020 07:38 AM IST | Mumbai | A correspondent
The nine-foot statue of Bal Thackeray in the making at a Jogeshwari workship. Pic/Sameer Markande
A nine-feet-tall statue of Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray will finally be installed near Regal cinema, if all goes to plan. The BMC's general body, led by Shiv Sena, on Tuesday gave permission for the installation of the statue in south Mumbai.
Civic sources said the statue is almost complete, but won't be installed on Thursday, January 23 (Thackeray's birth anniversary), as planned because approvals of various other departments, including the Mumbai Heritage Committee, the state government and the city collector, are pending.
Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar said the process of obtaining the remaining permissions will be fast-tracked now that the corporation has sanctioned the proposal. The statue will be erected as soon as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) gets all clearances.
The traffic island outside NGMA and Regal cinema where the statue will be installed. Pic/Ashish Raje
ALSO READ
Maharashtra polls: Mandate shows who is taking Bal Thackeray's ideals forward, says CM's MP son
Congress finally acknowledging Balasaheb Thackeray's legacy: Milind Deora
Bal Thackeray death anniversary: PM, Uddhav, Rahul Gandhi, others pay tribute
Visionary who championed cause of Maharashtra's development: PM pays homage to Bal Thackeray
Uddhav, other leaders pay tributes to Bal Thackeray on his death anniversary
There is a proposal to build 11-feet-high podium on a two-feet-high landscaped plot within the traffic island as the base of the statue. mid-day had reported in December 2017 that the statue was to come up at Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Chowk. However, during a group leaders' meeting recently, the location was changed from one traffic island to another.
The statue will be installed at a traffic island between Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya and National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) at MG Road in the same area. BMC standing committee chairman Yashwant Jadhav said the change was made because the new location has more space.
"Various permissions from our internal departments, too, will have to be taken apart from the ones coming from the state and collector for installation of statue and also for law and order as the plan is to keep the island accessible to people to view the statue. But all of this will depend on the permissions," a BMC official said.
Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates
