Ranchi Municipal Corporation began crackdown against illegal hoardings splashed everywhere in the city including on trees, next to the edge of streets and hoardings put up without proper permission of the corporation. The municipal body claimed to have removed around half of the total illegal hoardings in the municipal area.
Earlier, the RMC had drawn much flak for illegal hoarding placed at arbitrary places that obstructed visibility, caused harm to environment when nailed on trees some of which were decades old. The drive is being conducted by Market Cell of the RMC that incidentally keeps track of authorised hoardings. “We have removed around 70 per cent hoardings from the municipal area and the drive will continue until all illegal hoardings are removed. The aim is to keep the city clean and improve the beauty of the city,” said Senior PRO, RMC, Ram Krishna Kumar.
Notably, the municipal corporation was dragging its feet over taking firm actions against illegal hoardings despite assurances given by the previous Government that penal actions would be initiated against organisations that nail hoardings on trees which damaged a tree and hence deemed a threat to ecology. Nonetheless, the RMC is yet to take legal actions against people and businesses that rely on hoardings for the public relations exercise.
Although the municipal corporation submitted late to the need to remove encroachment above ground it nonetheless adopted a tough stand. The civic body removed more than 2000 illegitimately put signposts during Monday’s drive while the counting for the number of hoardings removed on Tuesday was yet to be done.
“It was not a convenient point from the point of view of traffic that people put up poles right next to the edge of road. It did obstruct visibility of rider,” added the Senior PRO. Unauthorised signposts that mushroomed in the absence of any timely actions did cause traffic problems and the issue was raised perpetually in meeting called for improving traffic on the streets of the Capital. An interdepartmental committee formed at the behest of Transport department had also asked the RMC to crackdown on signposts that are an obstruction to traffic especially commercial business district of Ranchi-Main Road-besides lalpur and Ratu Road.