Bengaluru: Bengaluru’s civic body has come in for scathing criticism from Karnataka High Court.
Rebuking the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) for its failure to address the issue of unauthorised flexes and hoardings, the high court observed that the civic body is the city’s “number 1 enemy.”
A bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Krishna S Dixit ordered a comprehensive survey of hoardings, boards and flexes erected in its limits to find out how many of those have been installed without authorisation.
The court, which was hearing a batch of public interest litigations (PILs), ordered BBMP to submit the survey result within 28 days with details regarding permission granted, fee collected and action taken against the violators in the past three years.
Senior counsel Ravivarma Kumar, representing a petitioner, submitted that the casual approach of the civic body was leading to a huge loss of revenue and rampant growth of illegal advertisements with the menace of hoardings defacing the city.
As many as 47 cases have been registered against unauthorised advertisers in the Bengaluru capital.
The two-judge bench highlighted issues arising out of the increase in illegal billboards and said that the burden of lost taxes from advertisements is ultimately passed on to Bengaluru residents due to BBMP’s shortcomings.
The high court observed that BBMP’s failure to collect taxes from billboards is evident as it appears to be struggling to allocate funds for essential citizen services. This has resulted led to a critical financial deficit in BBMP, impacting Bangalore’s overall development. The city’s aesthetics are also marred by the prevalence of illegal advertisements, noted the Karnataka High Court.
