Date:12/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/12/stories/2008051251480300.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Chances of hoardings returning to Chennai remote

Kannal Achuthan

— Photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam

on their way out: A worker operates a gas cutter on the scaffolding of an unauthorised hoarding on Anna Salai.

Chennai: The chances of hoardings making a comeback in the city are very remote, as regulators have decided to strictly go by the stipulations under the Chennai City Municipal Corporation Licensing of Hoardings and Levy and Collection of Advertisement Tax Rules of 2003.

According to Chennai Corporation Commissioner Rajesh Lakhoni, “The guidelines, in their present form, make it difficult for the hoardings to come back.” The traffic police, who are required to give ‘No objection certificates,’ also agree with this view. Mayor M. Subramanian insists that Chennai would soon be a city free of hoardings and the structures would not be allowed to come back.

The Chennai Collectorate is the regulatory body for the hoardings in the city. The Corporation, on the orders of the Collector, has removed the vinyl banners of 4,184 hoardings and taken down the scaffoldings of about 3,600 hoardings in the past four weeks. The action followed the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Madras High Court ruling against unauthorised hoardings. The drive would continue till all the structures are removed.

Fresh applications to put up hoardings may be submitted to the Chennai Collector, said Municipal Administration officials, adding that the rules act as a regulatory mechanism to ensure that hoardings are not hazardous to motorists and pedestrians. If a hoarding meets the prescribed norms, then it would be permitted.

But hoarding owners say that it is almost impossible to put up billboards that fulfil the rules. Tamil Nadu Private Site Hoardings Owners Association president K. Chandrasekaran said, “Going by the rules, hoardings cannot come up even on private premises.”

The rules fix the maximum size of hoardings in relation to road space.

For roads with width exceeding 100 feet, the hoarding could be a maximum of 24 feet X 12 feet in the horizontal position. Roads of width between 50 and 100 feet could have hoardings of size 15 feet X 10 feet (horizontal position) and roads with width less than 50 feet could have hoardings that are 12 feet X 6 feet (horizontal or vertical). The maximum height of a hoarding from ground level should not exceed 30 feet. When unregulated, hoarding sizes had easily gone up to 50 X 50 feet.

Also, hoardings should not be placed in front of education institutions, popular places of worship, hospitals and buildings of historic importance.

Corners of road and street junctions, up to a distance of 100 metres on either side of the junction, are off-limits for hoardings.

Hoardings should have at least a gap of five feet between them. Hoardings would not be permitted on footpaths that are less than 10 feet wide. Very few roads in the city have footpaths that are more than 10 feet wide.