The Hindu : Front Page : Drive against illegal hoardings begins

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 23, 2006

Front Page

Front Page

Drive against illegal hoardings begins

Staff Reporter

Four billboards removed; 250 more to go

CLEARING THE SKYLINE: A hoarding comes down near Panagal Park on Wednesday. — Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

CHENNAI: Four down, several more to go.

The Chennai Collectorate on Wednesday began its drive against unauthorised hoardings in the city by pulling down four of them in T.Nagar.

Officials of the Mambalam-Guindy taluk were present as Corporation workers tore down the boards. One of them was inside a school.

While the vinyl was ripped apart, officials said they would remove steel girders later in the night as several cars were parked below the boards.

Officials would remove at least 250 more hoardings in the Mambalam-Guindy taluk in a week.

The last time the government was involved in a major drive to remove hoardings was in 1998.

Hoarding owners were asked to display information relating to their application for licences filed with Chennai Corporation in 2001.

The civic agency had collected 3,609 applications for hoardings.

Hoardings mushrooming

Hoardings have mushroomed in the city in the last three years, the most recent addition being "unipole" hoardings, which are placed on a huge circular beam.

Though Supreme Court directed the Chennai Corporation to maintain status quo on the number of hoardings in the city, unipole hoardings have come up on private land in the last two years.

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