TAMBARAM: The initiatives taken by the Central and the State Governments to create greater awareness among the people on HIV/AIDS have certainly not reached some government agencies.

The police have asked shopkeepers to remove the small display boards put by the AIDS Prevention and Control Project of the Voluntary Health Services (APAC-VHS) near the Grand Southern Trunk Road .

The boards, put by APAC-VHS in association with We Care Social Service Society (WCSSS), were part of programmes to create more awareness among truck drivers and workers in industries — the target group of the awareness programme — and also most prone to acquiring HIV/AIDS. The boards carried messages urging the public not to hesitate visiting counselling centres and stressed the importance of using condoms.

The names of the tea stalls and other petty shops were also indicated in the boards. The boards helped in giving publicity to the shops and also helped in spreading the message of HIV/AIDS among the target group.

Such boards were distributed in large numbers to shops in areas where there were lorry sheds and garages and also at junctions near industrial areas.

But the shopkeepers have been reprimanded by personnel of police stations along the GST Road and those belonging to the Highway Patrol for displaying these boards as they would "block the flow of traffic on the national highway."

Some of the shopkeepers said the policemen's argument that the boards came in the way of traffic was not true. The boards were either kept near the edge of the service road or close to the shops, far from the GST Road.

Pointing to the haphazard parking of vehicles in Vandalur that increased the risk of accidents, the shopkeepers wondered if the law enforcers would attend to this problem. Volunteers who were involved in the AIDS awareness programme said they had taken note of the problem and planned to take alternative steps.

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