Date:07/12/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/12/07/stories/2006120707370100.htm

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No drive against hoardings yet

Karthik Subramanian

File photo of a hoarding being pulled down in Chennai recently.

CHENNAI: Just months after the Government showed signs of finally getting its act together to crack down on the mushrooming advertisement hoardings menace in the city, questions remain on when a full-fledged drive will take place. The Supreme Court in September had ordered status quo on removal of hoardings against an earlier Madras High Court order based on a petition filed by the Tamil Nadu Outdoor Advertising Association.

Officials are not sure whether they can take action against any of the existing hoardings. They had removed a few hoardings on Radhakrishnan Salai that had come up after the September order of the Supreme Court. But, that did not deter clandestine operators from putting up hoardings overnight.

A few days back, the Advertising Association had alerted Metropolitan Transport Corporation officials about a new advertisement hoarding that had come up within the Adyar bus terminus.

B.S. Gnanadesikan, Congress MP and advocate, who represented the Advertising Association in the court, said the September order itself was applicable for advertisement hoardings that existed on or before July 1998 and for which licence applications were received before June 2001. He said much of the problems and confusion over hoardings in Chennai was only because of inaction by officials over the past five years.

Chennai Mayor M. Subramanian has said that the Government will bring down the unauthorised hoardings.