Gigantic hoardings blocking the buildings behind them and cutting off streetlights have sprung up across the city ahead of Durga Puja.
Some of the hoardings are as tall as three-storey buildings and they rise from barely two feet above the kerb, making the pavements invisible from the road.
Fire-fighters will have to first cut through the layers of hoardings before they can get a clear sight of a house behind in case of an emergency.
CCTV cameras along arterial roads will often see a gigantic piece of black cloth framed in front. If the web of bamboo frames and the hoardings fails and falls, the result is anybody’s guess.
This Puja, the monstrous hoardings have intruded into spaces that were hitherto untrammelled by them, like along the water body off EM Bypass or the narrow lanes around Esplanade.
Dark pavements
The tall wall of hoardings, which rise up to the height of streetlights, cut off light, turning walkways into dark tunnels after sundown. “The situation has been like this for a considerably long period. This year, the hoardings have come up more than a month before the Puja,” said a police officer, who was speaking about Rashbehari Avenue.
A pavement along Hazra Road near the Kalighat fire station is one such stretch. Parts of Central Avenue look similar at night — street awash with light, pavements dark.
Pedestrians, especially the elderly, found it difficult to spot undulations on the pavement. “I almost tripped,”
said a bespectacled man after he had steadied himself at Hazra.
Cameras blocked
A police officer on duty somewhere in south Kolkata said he was aware of several CCTV cameras whose views had been limited by the hoardings. “There have been several instances when we had to
contact a Puja committee or the agency putting up hoardings so they remove the ones blocking CCTV cameras,” he said.
However, not all cameras are monitored regularly and many more may still remain blocked. “In case of a crime committed on a stretch whose view is blocked by a hoarding, the police will not have any footage to identify the culprit,” the officer said.
Fire hazard
A Ballygunge resident said he shuddered to think what would happen in case of a fire. Pedestrians and commuters are
often the first to spot a fire in a building and alert the authorities.
If the view of a building is blocked by a giant hoarding, like the ones that are put up during the Puja, a fire may remain undetected for long.
“And after the fire is spotted, firefighters will have to remove the clutter of hoardings before they can start spraying water. That will considerably delay the response time,” he said.
An online petition that started last year, demanding guidelines on the installation of temporary banners before Durga Puja, asked: “Is this not a safety issue as well? What happens if there is a fire? How will the response team work with such hoardings blocking access?”
Growing taller
A bamboo frame near Triangular Park on Rashbehari Avenue has space to put up four hoardings, one above the other. Most frames have space for two or three hoardings. Earlier, these frames had only one hoarding.
“This is worrying and claustrophobic for those living in the buildings behind
the hoardings and also for people running shops in these buildings,” said Ajay Mittal, who started the online petition.
The taller they grow, the bigger the threat of injury to people, if the structures collapse. “Imagine if a tall structure falls on a crowded street during Puja,” said a Ballygunge resident.
Intrusion
Hoardings along a large water body — Captain Bheri — on EM Bypass or Chowringee Place, the road running between Oberoi Grand and Peerless Inn, are a recent phenomenon. These stretches were devoid of hoardings even till a few years back, admitted Debashis Kumar, mayoral council member who heads the advertisement department of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC).
The custodian: The KMC is the custodian of the city’s streets and pavements and it is supposed to ensure the safety of any structure coming up
there, admitted a KMC official.
Officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the KMC neither checked
the safety of the structures nor had any idea about how many such hoardings
had come up along the city’s roads.
“The civic body does not earn any revenue from these temporary hoardings since the chief minister has said that hoardings put up in the run-up to the Puja cannot be taxed,” said the
official.
Asked about hoardings on Bypass, Kumar said: “We will start taking tax from the agencies on those stretches next year.”
He added that hoardings on Esplanade should be removed.