House Owners Putting Up Rooftop Hoardings Beware!

Bhubaneswar: To put a check on unauthorised rooftop hoardings, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to collect holding tax in commercial rate from house owners, who have allowed advertisers to put these up illegally on their buildings.

The other reason: Rooftop hoardings in the city are contributing to unsafe and cluttered city skyline.

On the first day of its drive, a BMC team on Wednesday under the leadership of Zonal Deputy Commissioner (North Zone) removed 13 rooftop hoardings at Chandrasekharpur.

According to Deputy Commissioner (Revenue) Srimanta Mishra, as per the 2006 Advertisement Regulations notified by the State Government, the Municipal Commissioner is empowered to remove any unauthorised advertisement from the city without prior notice. As the rooftop hoardings are unauthorised and illegal after first April 2018, these could be removed in accordance with the order of the Municipal Commissioner.

According to the Housing and Urban Development Department Resolution on November 21, 2013, notified in the Odisha Gazette as Advertisement Policy for Urban Odisha-2013, “The guiding principle of the policy for outdoor advertisement should not be driven by revenue, but by the city development imperatives and aesthetics sense of the area.”

“The ULB has the right to disapprove a sign or hoarding which he considers to be offensive, or when he is of the opinion that the type, position, size, appearance, illumination, animation, content or other characteristics of the sign or hoarding may adversely affect the ambience, architectural character, appearance and traffic safety of the area,” the notification added.

Apart from the cluttered and bad skyline, the hoardings, at times, just equal to the size of the rooftops they are on, making the structures vulnerable to the wind related damages.

There were several incidents in the past across the city in which the hoardings had fallen over vehicles or pedestrians and such incidents at Kalpana and Palaspalli are still in the memories of local residents.

Empanelled Structural Engineer with the Bhubaneswar Development Authority Bibhu Ranjan Giri said, “The huge hoardings always pose a threat to the structures and especially to the passersby and the vehicles passing nearby. The piled-up hoardings also spoil the city skyline.”

The civic authorities on Wednesday asked all the Zonal Deputy Commissioners (ZDCs) to make the re-assessment of holding tax in commercial rates on the houses or structures, which are having rooftop hoardings on them.

The ZDCs were also given a list of buildings on 16 stretches from the 40-km priority corridor across the city for the Hockey World Cup-2018, along which, the building owners have rooftop hoardings and are earning revenue from them.

The drive will cover other zones across the city.