GHMC to remove unauthorised hoardings

Hyderabad, Nov 3 (INN): City Mayor Banda Karthika Chandra Reddy on Wednesday took a stern view of violations by advertisement agencies while putting up hoardings, unipoles, lollipops in the central medians. Ms Karthika Reddy directed the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Additional Commissioner (Advertising) to remove all these unauthorized hoardings, unipoles, lollipops in central medians (greenery which is being maintained in the middle of the road) and to collect the advertisement tax by November 18, 2010. She said that the tax arrears, which have been pending since a long time, should also be collected along with the tax, from the advertisement agencies.

The Mayor had earlier in the day inspected the advertisement hoardings, unipoles, lollipops near Prasad I-Max theatre, Necklace road, Ministers Road, Begumpet and other areas in the jurisdiction of North and Central Zones. Ms Karthika Reddy pointed out that a lot of irregularities have been observed during her inspection especially the lollipops in the central median, the distance of 20 meters in between lollipops which has to be maintained as per rules. She pointed out that these lollipops, totally against the rules which has to be removed immediately duly coordinating with HMDA department. The Mayor also directed the official to submit a compliance report.

She pointed out that recently powers have been delegated to the Zonal commissioners to issue advertisement permissions at the Zonal level. In this context, the Mayor directed all the Zonal Commissioners to check the irregularities by deputing the field staff and to report correct information about the size of the hoardings, structural stability of the unipoles and also to remove all the obscene hoardings immediately which is causing much inconvenience to women.

Ms Karthika Reddy further stated that GHMC advertisement wing has collected Rs 18.36 crore till date and a target of Rs 37 crore has been fixed for the year 2010-2011. She expressed that the advertisement wing would complete the target by collecting Rs 37 crore in revenue. The Mayor opined that collection of advertisement tax is also important but the beauty of the city and security reasons, especially in VIP areas are to be kept in view and more importance for the convenience of the citizen should be kept in mind. Ms Karthika Reddy said that most of the Metropolitan cities like Delhi, Calcutta and Mumbai have banned erection of hoardings on the main roads. She said that a meeting would decide whether to follow these cities example.