Civic Apathy: Dangers from ad hoarding unseen

Hyderabad: As many as 900 hoardings in the city do not possess mandatory structural stability certificates. Most of these hoardings are adjacent to busy roads and have the potential not only to cause severe damage to private and public property, but pose serious threat to the lives of civilians. 

Several advertising agencies have violated the rules and either increased the size of the hoarding or erected it with poor quality metal which may collapse at any time. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has been a mere spectator to this danger for the past several years. 

Grave incidents have occurred after which the GHMC constituted a committee or held a ‘drive’ to pull down hoardings but this has not curbed the flagrant flouting of rules.

According to highly placed sources, every ad agency has to obtain a structural stability certificate from empanelled engineers annually and has to submit it at the end of every financial year (March end).

This year, in a knee-jerk reaction to the collapse of the hoarding at the Khairatabad railway station earlier this month, the due date for submission was advanced. The corporation is yet to declare whether the hoarding possesses a structural stability certificate or not. 

Public safety is thrown to the winds by advertising agencies that increase the height of the hoardings to grab greater attention at prime locations, especially near flyovers, bridges and foot-over-bridges, claiming that the metro rail project is hampering visibility. 

Some 879 hoardings in Hyderabad do not possess any structural stability certificate from structural engineers, and can collapse even during moderate winds. Such violations are clearly evident in Khairatabad, Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills, Himayathnagar, Kukatpally, Dilsukhnagar and Begumpet.

 Corporation officials themselves say ground level advertising wing staff is hand-in-glove with the advertising agencies, allowing them to openly flout the law. An agency takes permission to erect a hoarding measuring 40 x 20 sq.ft., but instead extends this to more than 70 sq.ft.  He stressed that GHMC would initiate legal action not only on advertisement agencies, but also private agencies. He said that priority would be given to public safety rather than revenue generation. 

When asked why agencies that violate the norms are not blacklisted, the official said permission will be given on a tentative basis to keep the industry alive without compromising on safety parameters. 

He said that structural engineers, who issue structural stability certificates to set up hoardings, will be held responsible in the event of an accident that results in damage to property and loss of life.  Despite enforcement of wings to curb the menace, such assurances somehow ring hollow in the light of past experience.