CMP is prepared after doing survey and studying the topography and landscape of a particular area. The idea is to understand the growing population of the city, and accordingly prepare the traffic and transport strategy for the next 20 years, which includes widening of roads, construction of flyovers, implementation of metro, mono-rail or other transport feasible for the particular city.

"CPM is mandatory in any project related to transport and traffic management, where central assistance is required", said a source in UDHD adding, "Since CPM of Patna was not made, the centre was not giving green signal to the metro project, so we had to make rapid assessment study (RAS) of Patna r instead of CPM, to get the nod from the centre".

As of now CMP of Patna, Danapur, Khagaul, Phulwarisharif, Bhagalpur, Munger, Katihar, Purnia, Begusarai, Ara, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Biharsharif and Gaya would be made.

The request for proposal (RFP) would be finalised in 21 days, followed by the selection of the consultant, which would be done in 60 days, from the signing of MOU.

A division bench of justice Bhushan Gavai and justice Vinay Deshpande then adjourned hearing for four weeks. The court was hearing a plea by Dr Gajanan Zade and Manohar Khorgade through counsel Firdos Mirza.

Earlier, Puranik said the corporation would be charging Rs2,500 for a pandal on less than 300 sq m area, Rs5,000 for structure below 500 sq m and Rs10,000 above this size. He added over thousand application forms for erecting pandals and other structures in various areas of 10 zones had been sold from NMC's single window counter, while about 500 had submitted them with necessary documents. Of these, only 13 mandals were granted no-objection certificate (NOC) so far while four were rejected since their pandals were coming up on main roads.

At the last hearing, the court had allowed pandals on internal roads only, which is a deviation from its earlier orders of September 16, 2009, February 2, March 11 and 27 last year. Surprisingly, it also allowed arches on main roads, after initially prohibiting them, but with a rider that it would not cause any obstruction to free flow of traffic. The twist came after NMC submitted a comprehensive policy to tackle the menace of pandals, welcome arches/gates, flexes, banners, hoardings and stages on roads.

Expressing concern over inconvenience to citizens and obstructions to traffic, the judges said that appropriate fees and penalties should be charged, so that permissions are not sought in a routine and casual manner.

After repeatedly facing the judiciary's flak, NMC came out with a 'Policy to grant permission for erection of temporary structures like pandals, welcome arches/gates, flexes, banners, hoardings and stages, on public streets/ roads/ footpaths/ footways, on occasion of festivals and ceremonies'. It also informed that it had started two helplines numbers (0712-2532474 and 1800-233-3764 (toll free)) for citizens to lodge a complaint if any such structures were causing hindrance to traffic or inconvenience to them.