The Hindu : New Delhi News : Hoardings point at nexus among officials, leaders

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Nov 30, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Hoardings point at nexus among officials, leaders

By Sandeep Joshi

NEW DELHI, NOV. 29. In gross violation of Supreme Court guidelines, a large number of huge hoardings have come up across the Capital, particularly in East Delhi, South Delhi and Outer Delhi, due to an alleged nexus among civic officials, local politicians and advertising agencies. And all this is causing huge revenue losses to the civic body.

About five years ago the Supreme Court had directed the civic bodies in the Capital to ensure that no hoardings came up along roads as they diverted the attention of motorists, posing a risk to their lives. But a few months after the imposition of the ban, hoardings began coming up in large parts of the Capital. Initially the Corporation acted against these illegal hoardings, but keeping in mind the amount of money involved in this business, removal of such illegal hoardings no longer remained MCD's priority.

These days huge illuminated hoardings of big companies have been installed along Ring Road, particularly at the Bhairon Road crossing, Noida Mor and at inter-State borders. Some of these hoardings are almost 50-foot-long and divert the attention of motorists. Though halogen lights have also been installed to illuminate them by either installing power generator sets or by taking electricity connections, the civic agency is still turning a blind eye towards all these illegal activities.

Significantly, while responding to the BJP Councillors' queries in the MCD House last week, the Municipal Commissioner, Rakesh Mehta, had said all the hoardings that had come up near Noida Mor were illegal. The BJP Councillors had alleged that the local civic body officials along with advertising agencies were causing huge monetary losses to the Corporation.

Since the ban on advertising, MCD's revenue collection from this head has taken a severe beating. In the financial year 2002-03, the collection from hoardings was over Rs.11 crores, in 2003-04 Rs.12 crores while in the current fiscal so far the collection has crossed Rs.13 crores. However, the MCD can easily earn over Rs.30 crores every year from hoardings provided the ban is lifted.

Now to check gross violation of prescribed norms and also to add to its depleting revenue, MCD has decided to urge the Supreme Court to allow it to install more hoardings but in a planned way. The Mayor has also asked the Municipal Commissioner to prepare a clear-cut policy for installing hoardings in the Capital and approach the Supreme Court requesting it for some relaxation in norms.

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