The collapse of an illegal hoarding in Mumbai has raised questions about the possibility of similar incident in Telangana’s urban areas where unipoles and hoardings are aplenty.
The 12x120 feet hoarding in Mumbai’s Ghatkopar area crushed 16 persons to death in its collapse due to high velocity winds and thunderstorm. A video clip of the collapse widely shared in the social media is causing jitters among the civic officials.
The policy of advertisement hoardings and display boards is constantly on the shift in Telangana, and also not uniform across the cities.
The area under the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has been only recently sanitised of the hoardings and unipoles more than 15 feet in height. However, a draft policy which has been pending with the government since before the Assembly elections, proposes to bring back the hoardings in a limited way.
Causing more concern is the fact that the urban fringes of the city, within and beyond Outer Ring Road, have a large number of hoardings, several of them erected without permission too. Narsingi, Manikonda, Nanakramguda, Gandipet, Tukkuguda, Tellapur and other areas where the metropolis is spreading at a dizzying pace, are all dotted by hoardings much taller than 15 feet, portending disaster in case of heavy winds.
Some of these hoardings in Narsingi and Manikonda are in thickly populated areas. They are all out of GHMC jurisdiction, and hence excluded from the ban imposed by government orders of 2020.
Four years ago, the then BRS government issued the orders imposing a ban on the advertisement elements above 15 feet height specifically within GHMC area. These elements include hoardings, unipoles, uni structures, neon or glow sign boards, arches, flexi boards, glass boards, balloons and others.
A cartel of advertising agencies approached the High Court against the orders, obtaining a stay on any action to remove the existing billboards, with the rider that no advertisements would be displayed on them.
Six months ago, a final order was given in favour of the State government, following which close to 2,000 hoarding structures were removed from the city by the Enforcement wing of the GHMC.
However, just before the elections to the Legislative Assembly, a draft policy was prepared by GHMC and sent to the State government, seeking permission to relax the restrictions in a limited way.
The policy proposes to bring back advertisements on bus shelters, and on parking complexes under construction, besides granting relaxations for unipoles. After the governments changed, however, nothing has been heard about the policy.
One instance when Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, in a review meeting with municipal officials, spoke in favour of bill boards with video display such as the ones at Times Square, New York, has brought the discussion back to the table.
“Right now, nothing is on paper. But discussions are on about having a uniform hoarding policy throughout the State, and about allowing static digital displays on flyovers and other tall structures,” an official informed under the condition of anonymity.
