Date:14/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/14/stories/2008041458100300.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Pall of gloom descends over the industry

Deepa H. Ramakrishnan

From workers to creative heads, all are in a state of shock

Hoarding owners are now unable to collect the charges from their clients
“After removing these hoardings, we don’t have a livelihood”

— File photo

Changing fortunes: Workers who once set up hoardings are now employed to remove them.

CHENNAI: A pall of gloom seems to hang over the 40-year-old hoarding industry. Right from the worker who climbs up the scaffoldings to display advertisements to heads of creative design agencies, everyone is in a state of shock and anguish.

Hoarding owners, who had rented out their billboards on credit, are now unable to collect the charges from their clients. Old timers in the industry said hoardings had been in existence from 1968 on Anna Salai. In those days, artists would climb up scaffoldings to paint the advertisements.

Digital banners have become the norm now.

According to estimates, the hoarding industry has a turnover of Rs.25 crore a year. It employs people for erecting and maintaining the scaffoldings, designing, printing and putting up vinyl sheets. Many workers, who were involved in putting up sheets and scaffoldings, are now involved in removing them.

Thangavel, a worker, said, “We would be paid Rs. 300 a day as wages. Even now we are being paid the same wages. But after removing these hoardings we don’t have a livelihood.

“Some of us have plans to go back to our native villages.”

Workers who can operate gas-cutters have been employed by the Corporation to remove the hoardings. “It is only a temporary job. We will go back to doing our regular industry jobs after this. But what about the people, who work in this industry regularly?” asked Angappan, a gas cutter.