Power supply to illegal hoardings riles Upa Lokayukta

Cracking the whip on illegal hoardings and advertisement boards in the City, Upa Lokayukta Justice Subhash B Adi has directed the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) to provide the list of renewal of hoardings and grant of permission of power supply to such billboards.

Giving a slew of directions on the removal of unauthorised hoardings, Justice Adi ordered the two government agencies to make submissions before him on November 5 at 11.30 am. In his order, he asked the BBMP’s assistant commissioner (advertisement) to furnish the list of applications received for the renewal of hoardings or grant of permission by the end of June 2014 to the managing director of Bescom for his action and report. He also directed the Bescom MD to submit the list of power supply connections made to the hoardings in the City.

Referring to a complaint made by Saidatta of Karnataka Janahita Vedike—an NGO—Justice Adi maintained that there were just 2,000 authorised hoardings in Bangalore while the rest were illegal, and that were making huge profits without paying any advertisement tax or penalty.

Saidatta had also alleged that the BBMP had directed the Bescom not to supply power to such illegal hoardings. Yet, many unauthorised hoardings have power connections.
 Justice Adi also pulled up the BBMP, saying it has done little to check illegal hoardings while the Bescom too did not check power supply to such billboards that have been causing great damage to the beauty of the City.