The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : City Corporation begins pulling down billboards

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Thursday, Apr 10, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

City Corporation begins pulling down billboards

Staff Reporter

4,000 hoardings identified to be brought down

About 20 gas-cutters employed to bring down the support pillars
The drive will be carried out for several days

Chennai: Several huge billboards along arterial roads in the city were brought down by the Chennai Corporation on Wednesday, following the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Madras High Court’s ruling against unauthorised or unlicensed hoardings and those that pose hazards or obstruct visibility.

Based on an order from the Chennai Collector, the Corporation started pulling down the hoardings with police protection. The Collectorate has identified about 4,000 hoardings that need to be brought down.

Hoardings near the Gymkhana Club on Pallavan Salai and near Stella Maris College on Cathedral Road were pulled down. Seven hoardings at other locations were also removed. Corporation officials said that hoardings near the busy Gemini Circle were set to be brought down later at night to avoid hindrance to traffic. About 20 gas-cutters were employed to bring down the support pillars of the hoardings after tearing down the printed sheets.Zonal officials and Corporation Revenue department officials will carry out the operations.

A big hoarding could take a minimum of two hours to bring down and so the drive to remove the hoardings would be carried out for several days. In locations where traffic may be disrupted, the work would be carried out at night, an official said.

When the legality of a 1985 law to ‘acquire, nationalise’ hoardings was challenged in the Supreme Court, the State Government in 1998 passed legislation to regulate hoardings. Later, there was a move to regularise hoardings but this was resisted by civic welfare activists.

In August 2006, the Madras High Court directed the Chennai district administration to remove 1,252 unauthorised hoardings in the city. Some hoardings were pulled down. However, private site hoarding owners’ associations said that some of the hoardings were covered by a status quo order from the Supreme Court.

Rajesh Rangarajan of Citizen, Consumer and Civic Action Group (CAG) said that the Supreme Court’s upholding of the order was overall a positive step for improving motorists’ and pedestrians’ safety. For a long time now, the CAG has been voicing its concerns about hazardous hoardings.

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