The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) office.
Credit: DH Photo
Belagavi: The BBMP’s advertisement policy came under severe attack from lawmakers cutting across party lines in the Assembly on Tuesday with Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda conceding that the civic body was notorious on this front.
Basavanagudi BJP MLA Ravi Subramanya raised a question on the BBMP’s self-advertisement permits. “I have an RTI reply according to which no permit has been given. But the reply furnished by the government states that 97 permits have been given. Who is lying?” he said.
Gowda said the RTI reply was false. Shivajinagar Congress MLA Rizwan Arshad said the BBMP lacked a mechanism to check violations in self-advertisement.
“They’d have taken permit for self-advertisement, but commercial advertisements will be done,” he said. Gowda agreed with the lawmakers.
“A fine of Rs 75,000 has been levied in three cases. That’s perhaps a day’s income for them. There’s no doubt that BBMP officials have colluded in this,” he said, adding that the government would ask the BBMP to consider cancelling self-advertisement licences.