Marathi Signboards in Mumbai: BMC Law Committee Targets ‘Rich’ Hotels and Big Business for Language Violations
3 min readMumbaiMay 11, 2026 10:28 PM IST
In a move to promote and restore ‘Marathi Asmita’ in Mumbai, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) law committee has demanded stricter enforcement of action against owners of shops and commercial establishments that have yet to set up signboards in Marathi language. The move came after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) corporator — Tejinder Singh Tiwana raised a notice of motion during Monday’s civic law committee meeting.
In February 2022, the state government unanimously passed a resolution at the legislative assembly by amending the Maharashtra Shops and Establishments Act, thus mandating the setting up of signboards above all the shops and commercial establishments in the State that would display the names of the establishments in Marathi language.
The state government’s order stated that the font size of the Marathi language should be bigger and bolder than the font size of any other language that would be used in the signboard.
Following this the BMC has been carrying out inspections in markets and public spaces checking the display boards of shops and started penalising the owners. However, the move was discontinued after the Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association (FRTWA) had approached the Supreme Court (SC). The SC later issued a temporary stay in 2022 and had asked the civic authorities to file a reply. However, the stay was revoked in September, 2023 and the civic body had given establishments time till November that year for setting up Marathi signboards. Following this, the BMC started taking action on the establishments.
According to BMC data there are 5 lakh shops and commercial establishments in Mumbai. After the Supreme Court order came into force, the civic body had appointed 60 inspectors at various ward and zonal levels for inspecting the shops and on a daily basis, the BMC had set up a target to inspect 1,500-2,000 shops per day.
Meanwhile, on Monday BMC’s law committee chairperson and Shiv Sena corporator, Diksha Karkar asked the civic body’s license department to submit a report on the total number of shops and establishments that were penalised for for not setting up Marathi signboards.
“The civic administration is biased in their actions against commercial shop owners who have not set up Marathi signboards yet. They are only penalising and taking action against common shop and business owners while owners of rich hotels and industrial units are not being penalised,” Tiwana said during Monday’s meeting by raising a point of order.
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“Many five star hotels and private commercial buildings haven’t set up Marathi sign boards displaying their names, therefore the authorities need to present an action-taken report on it,” he added.
A civic official said that till last December, notices were sent to 5,500 shops and establishments for not setting up Marathi signboards.
Following which a penalty of Rs 2,000 was implemented on the total number of people that were present at the shop.
