Keeping the city free from the mess of wall posters, as part of the ‘Transforming Vijayawada’ campaign taken up by the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation, has now become a tough task for the authorities and the volunteers, thanks to the errant advertising agencies which are continuing to deface the roadside walls at public places of the city by sticking posters. Also, urination by men at the walls which were cleaned by volunteers during a massive campaign organised before the Krishna Pushkarams turned a concern.
Though a majority of the walls, particularly those on the M.G. Road, feature colourful murals, those in the interior roads still bear the cinema posters and other advertisements which are a violation of the Andhra Pradesh Prevention of Disfigurement of Open Places and Prohibition of Obscene and Objectionable and Advertisements Act.
Civic teams
The violation is so frequent that the municipal corporation’s Town Planning wing had to deploy a team of 10 workers led by a building inspector every night to remove the posters stuck on the walls at many spots.
“As the violation is recurrent, we took it up as a daily duty to clean the walls every night. Two teams in two vans are going around the city between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m.,” city planner B. Srinivasulu told The Hindu .
Earlier, the Police Department also campaigned for the cause and took to roads cleaning up the walls. Later, upon complaints from the corporation, the police registered cases against some advertising agencies and organisations that pasted posters in various areas of the city.
“It was so disheartening to see the walls disfigured again. Hundreds of students took to roads as part of the campaign and worked for days to free the city walls of posters. We found posters again on such walls and informed the corporation authorities,” said Lakshmi Annapurna, founder of Margam, an NGO with which the corporation partnered for the campaign.
Apart from wall posters and graffiti, banners and flexis of political leaders on busy roads are causing inconvenience to motorists.
