Hyderabad: Officials of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) said it has no plan to bring back the hoardings that are double the size of the ones that existed earlier.
“The new advertisement policy is yet to be approved by the chief minister. The draft policy does not say that the size of the hoardings will be doubled,” said a GHMC official.
“Let the people who decided the size and other details of the hoardings to create a panic after the Mumbai billboard mishap release the government order (GO) on advertisement,” he said.
The official was reacting to an English newspaper’s report which claimed that the maximum size of hoardings will be increased to 30 feet. Incidentally, the news was published a day after the collapse of Mumbai’s billboard, killing 14 people.
The draft of the new advertisement policy, which is not yet approved, seeks relaxation on setting up billboards, above 15 feet from the ground level. Since the policy was not approved yet, the ban on advertisement elements, which are above 15 feet from ground level, continues. A story on the draft policy was published in Deccan Chronicle on February 22.
The draft policy laid more focus on setting up of static LED advertisement panels and the ban on the display of motion picture based hoardings will continue. They wanted to study best practices from across the country and implement it in Hyderabad.
A senior official from the GHMC asked people not to panic over false stories. “An article was published in an English daily suggesting that a 29 model corridors of 21 km length will be developed with Rs. 568 crore in the city. Why will anyone spend `27.04 crore for developing 1 km of road stretch or a model corridor,” he laughed and said that, newspapers should educate people with the correct facts.
