Residents are demanding regulation of permanent billboards put up by advertising firms on buildings, road medians, roundabouts and sidewalks of arterial stretches in Puducherry in the aftermath of a fatal accident that occurred after a giant hoarding crashed in Mumbai recently.
Following the reports about the giant billboard weighing around 250 tonnes collapsing on a petrol station when a dust storm hit Mumbai, killing around 16 persons and injuring many, residents are pushing for pre-emptive measures from authorities to avert a similar disaster in a city landscape dotted with potentially hazardous hoardings, billboards and other advertisement materials.
Residents point out that at several places in the town, including the commercial hubs of Jawaharlal Nehru Street, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Anna Salai and on the arterial stretches of Maraimalai Adigal Salai, huge advertisement panels have been put up posing threat to life and property.
“If you notice, most of the hoardings put up in the commercial hubs, are protruding on to the road. The billboards erected atop the buildings extend to the middle of the road. Then, there are these huge hoardings erected on metal frames, displayed on either side of the main thoroughfares. The weather is extremely unpredictable with sudden storms and strong winds frequenting the coast. We are more prone to vagaries of weather as the town is close to the sea. So it is important that we take precautionary measures,” said a government doctor.
The Local Administration Department should conduct a structural audit of the billboards kept on commercial establishments and along roadsides inside the town and outskirts, he said.
G. Rajendran, a resident of Boulevard, said several State governments have launched drives against illegal hoardings following the Mumbai incident. “We have not witnessed any such action by the two municipalities in Puducherry. The officials should wake up and act with alacrity as they did when the Model Code of Conduct came into existence after the announcement of the Lok Sabha poll. The steps taken by the officials after the announcement of the elections have made the town largely free of flex boards and other display materials,” he said.
A retired officer of the Local Administration Department said the municipalities are not getting any revenue after the power to levy advertisement tax was taken away from the local bodies. The advertisement tax has been subsumed by the GST, he pointed out.
A senior official told The Hindu that the Local Administration Department has already prepared the draft for bylaws for regulating advertisements considering public safety. It will be called as the Pondicherry Municipality Advertisement Bye-Law, 2023, he said. He added that the administration has taken a serious note of the Mumbai incident involving the collapse of a giant billboard.
“A few days ago, a meeting was held at the Chief Secretariat where the issue of giant billboards was discussed. The bylaw is ready but in the aftermath of the Mumbai incident, we will incorporate additional provisions as several States are coming out with new guidelines and regulations on outdoor advertising,” the official said.
Referring to the move by the government to come out with bylaws for regulations, the retired official said the government should not wait for new legislations to act on the advertisement panels erected already.
“They need not wait for a notification to clampdown on violators. The Public Works Department should be directed to conduct a safety audit and remove those ones posing threat to life and property. There are enough powers for the District Collector to act on such subjects,” he added.
