At last the civic body has decided to crack down on the rapidly mushrooming hoardings and banners in the city.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has come up with stricter rules with regard to the same this year on. It has announced a blanket ban on all political banners on birthday greetings and other wishes as well as commercial advertisement banners. Hoardings, on the other hand, have been banned from being put up on buildings more than 30 years old.
Civic officials said only limited banners will be permitted during festivals — Ganeshotsav, Durgotsav, Eid and Christmas.
With this new policy, the BMC expects to control the city's defacement.
During last year's budget presentation, municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte had said that, in view of the mushrooming hoardings and banners in the city, the civic body needs to monitor and have a control over advertisement hoardings and banners from the aesthetic point of view.
While presenting the budget for 2014-15, Kunte said the modifications in guidelines are framed. As per the modifications, the distance between two hoardings must be 100 metres (earlier, it was 20 metres). Hence, permissions won't be granted to a new hoarding if it's at a lesser distance from an existing one.
"New hoardings, hereafter, won't be permitted on religious places, building terraces and in areas falling in heritage precincts. Renewal of permit for hoardings on terraces of buildings less than 30 years old will be done only after submission of the Structural Stability Certificate, issued after carrying out the requisite stress tests," Kunte had said in his budget speech.
Advertisers will have to share revenue
This year, radical changes have been introduced in the policy on advertisements. Advertising agencies and the advertisers will have to register themselves with the municipal corporation and they will be required to share their revenue. The revenue sharing will be decided in due course with approval of the corporation
