The year-long drive to remove illegal hoardings in the city has slowed down with the result that city is dotted with illegal hoardings. Worse, sponsors have not paid advertisement fee. At present, hardly seven or eight hoardings are removed with posters and banners.
The state cabinet in previous Kamal Nath led government had passed a proposal to rid the state of illegal hoardings, banners and cut-outs. As a result, Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) had carried out month-long special drive in November last year to remove illegal hoardings and banners. Over 10,000 illegal hoardings were removed under the drive. They included hoardings of ministers. Commercial hoardings were removed from shops and houses during the drive.
The outdoor media rules had come into being in 2017, under which hoardings had to be hung or pasted in any area after the registration and submitting fee. For commercial advertising on shops and houses, the fee had to be paid to BMC and for political or religious advertisement, the applicant has to approach collector and BMC had to comply with collector’s order.
For over year, hardly any political advertiser has contacted BMC for paying the fees. Less than 20 commercial advertisers are approaching civic body for online registration of their brand where they have to pay the fee. The civic body takes action only on cut-outs of politicians or religious hoardings after the event gets over. The hoardings keep on flashing until any event is organised.
When contacted, deputy municipal commissioner Manoj Shrivastav said illegal hoardings are being removed. “No one has approached us in recent times for seeking permission and giving fee for political or religious hoardings,” he added.
