Advertisement hoardings are gone, but metal frames stay put in Bengaluru

BENGALURU: Bengaluru may have got rid of flex, banners and hoardings, thanks to the intervention of the Karnataka High Court, but the structures that supported these display ads still remain. An estimated 2,000-plus massive metal structures are yet to be removed.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) decision to hear each of the ‘legal’ advertising hoarding cases has delayed the process of removing the huge metal structures. The BBMP, which had estimated the number of advertising hoardings in the city at about 4,000, had issued notices to advertisement agencies to remove the hoardings.

Though the process of issuing notices had started almost two years ago, it intensified and saw action on the ground after the Karnataka High Court directed the corporation around four months back to make the city free of outdoor advertisements.

The BBMP had classified these advertisement hoardings as legal and illegal. Illegal hoardings are those installed without seeking BBMP’s permission and without paying advertisement tax; legal advertisements are those installed after getting the permission. The BBMP had estimated that there were 1,800 illegal hoardings in the city and 2,000 legal ones.

“We have removed metal structures of all the 1,800 illegal advertisements. As far as legal structures are concerned, we are not removing them immediately. Some of them have gone to the court, while in the rest of the cases, we need to hear the advertiser’s version as to why the structure should not be removed,” said BBMP commissioner N Manjunath Prasad.

But this classification as legal and illegal and, thus, allowing advertisers to retain the huge metal structures has not gone down well with activists fighting against of display of outdoor advertisements.

“The BBMP’s decision to give a hearing to each advertisers before removing the metal structure is nothing but a tactic to retain advertisement hoardings in the long run,” said Saidatta, who filed public interest litigation against indiscriminate display of advertisements in Bengaluru.

He said that none of the hoardings in Bengaluru can be termed as ‘legal’ as the BBMP did not renew licences for hoardings after 2016. “So, by default, every hoarding is illegal, and, hence, metal structures need to be removed.”

The BBMP’s decision is also being seen as an exercise in futility given its proposal to implement a new advertisement bylaw that bans outdoor advertisements for one year. The new bylaw intends to allow only digital display of advertisements in Bengaluru after a year.

“The BBMP has said it would adjudicate each of these 2,000 hoardings case. But the process of adjudication needs to be accelerated. We intend to bring this to the court’s notice as well,” said Ramesh Chandra, an advocate handling the advertisement hoarding case for the petitioner in the HC.