Karnataka - Mysore   

Corporation's move on hoardings raises eyebrows

By Our Staff Correspondent

The hoarding issue has cropped up again with the Mysore City Corporation calling fresh tenders to put up hoardings. — Photo: M.A. Sriram

MYSORE, MARCH 15. The Mysore City Corporation today reneged on its promise of freezing new hoardings in Mysore city for six months and called for fresh tenders to put up billboards and commercial hoardings.

It was only two weeks ago that there was a public outcry against the corporation's decision to flood the city with 500 new hoardings, which led the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and members of the Mysore Agenda Task Force (MATF) to take the lead in stalling the process.

The Mayor, Dakshinamurthy, later held a meeting with the people and announced in a specially convened press conference that the corporation will freeze installation of new hoardings for six months.

This was widely welcomed as a victory for the people concerned about the increasing "visual pollution" in the city.

The Mayor had also claimed that he will soon constitute a committee of experts drawn from the Heritage Committee to draft guidelines for erecting hoardings so that the aesthetics of the city are not compromised.

Hence, today's advertisements have come as a shock and INTACH, the MATF and others have expressed concern over the sudden developments as this comes in the wake of assurances held out by the Mayor to the public.

In a press release, INTACH and MATF said the corporation owes moral responsibility to explain to the public the sudden change of mind on its part and cautioned that it is betraying the interest of the city.

Though the earlier tender process was to have taken place on March 2, it was stalled because of public pressure and the Mayor had announced its cancellation.

However, the new advertisement issued today has fixed March 22 as the date for public auction of rights for the display of hoardings.

While people's pressure forced the corporation to stall the tender proceedings, the Deputy Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah, called for a status quo on the issue before a final decision could be taken.

But the Commissioner of the corporation had aired misgivings in the meeting with the citizens about the concept of "hoarding free city" and had wondered if it was feasible.

Inspection

Meanwhile, it is reliably learnt that a committee constituting representatives of INTACH and the MATF, the Mayor and the corporation Commissioner will go on a inspection of the sites.

A member of the committee expressed doubts over the outcome of the exercise as he feared that the authorities have already decided to go ahead with the auction and only wanted to rope in public representatives and non-governmental organisations to give the move legitimacy.

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