Dehradun Mayor Vinod Chamoli on Saturday directed the civic body officials to launch a drive to remove illegal hoardings, particularly those placed outside shops, hotels and temples. Sources privy to the civic body said that the drive is an imperative as section of the municipal officials are allowing unauthorized hoardings to come up in shops and residences in lieu of money.
With hoardings and other forms of advertisements constituting a major revenue sources for the civic body, corrupt practices must be stamped out with a heavy hand, a senior Dehradun-based civic body official said. He further said that despite the officials claiming to have directed their sub-ordinates to remove them or penalize the violators things on the ground remained the same. Things are indeed serious. The number of hoardings in the capital city, most of them put up illegally, has been worrying both the municipal authority as well as the common people residing in the city.
Defacement of public and private property is evident in areas such as Gandhi Park, Survey of India, Chakrata Road, Survey Chowk, Rispana Bridge and Premnagar. “Most of such hoardings are unauthorized. They are one of the causes of the spiraling accidents,” said a student residing in Premnagar. A municipal official said that the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun will come down heavily on the violators of the rules, adding that the officers have been directed to recover dues from the advertisement agencies responsible for putting up illegal hoardings on lamp posts and other sites across town.
According to the Uttaranchal Prevention of Defacement of Public Property Act, defacement of any public property is liable to imprison the defaulter for a term of one year or the person can be imposed with a fine of ten thousand rupees or both. It further states that except for the use of name and address of a person, the use of chalk, ink, paint or any other material along with the pasting of posters is prohibited.
However, ironically, most of the hoardings in the city violate these rules, observers say. The authorities’ laid- back attitude towards the issue is used by companies and others involved in the promotion of their products, an observer says.