Advertisement banner and hoardings are back on the streets of Bengaluru.
The city witnesses large hoardings and banners in different parts of the city despite BBMP’s ban on hoardings and flexes
By Ambalika Banerjee.
October 1, 2019, Bengaluru.
After a year of ban on advertisement banners and flexes, hoardings are back on the roads of Bangaluru. The city witnesses large hoardings and banners in different parts of the city despite BBMP’s ban on hoardings and flexes.
Sairabanu, shopkeeper of a juice shop on M.G Road, said, “I’ve been working here for 2 years, initially they did not have the advertisement hoarding because of some problem with the government, however its back now.”
On 1st August 2018, BBMP’s council decided to ban all flexes, banners, buntings, illegal advertisement boards, wall posters and other materials for outdoor advertising in the city for one year on Karnataka High Court’s order. This ban was implemented to curb visual pollution in public spaces; however BBMP bus shelter and skywalks are exempted from the restriction.
Avinanda Banerjee, resident of Yeshwantpur, said, “The ban was a good idea by the government, because of the hoarding and flexes on road it used to cause distraction for the drivers and that used to cause accidents. Now the hoardings are back it will cause more accidents and distract the commuters”
Advertisement agencies in the city said the ban from BBMP is not affecting their business much. Dilip Kumar H.K, owner of Dilip prints, said “The ban doesn’t have much impact on our business, number of orders that we used to get remain the same more or less. However we had to change the material from plastic to clothe and that costs more.”
BBMP claims to have removed 1846 number of hoardings from the city in past one year. Out of the total number of hoardings being removed by BBMP, Mahadevpura zone under BBMP tops the chart with 452 number of hoarding being removed. Srinivas , Assistant Revenue Officer of BBMP , said “ BBMP is going to introduce new bye-laws now which will allow shop rent, Public Private partnership projects and smaller advertisement hoardings. BBMP will not allow any commercial hoardings. Gazette for new bye-law has been passed on 7th Sep 2019 and it will come in effect from December of this year.”
The bye-laws aim to promote traffic safety by minimizing distractions, and to prohibit materials harmful to the environment. It also aims to reduce the revenue loss of BBMP from illegal hoardings. Dr. V. Ramesh, H.O.D of civil engineering Dept. at Rajarajeswari College, said “Advertisements were kept on busy streets of the city, which has caused numerous accidents in the city. The flexes are kept on footpaths as well, it doesn’t allow pedestrians to walk on it and they are forced to walk on the road. The initiate by High court of Karnataka is very good. There are alternatives to the problem as well; we can switch to social media and electronic media advertisements. We can put up L.E.D TV for advertisement rather than using plastic flexes and adding to the garbage problem of the city.
