- No more than five billboards on a 1km stretch except on some roads.
- Piers of flyovers maintained by the state government to be free of advertisements.
- Temporary banners put up ahead of festivals should be removed within a deadline.
These are some of the proposals in an advertisement policy that the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has prepared and is awaiting final approval.
The proposals, sent to mayor Firhad Hakim by the advertisement department of the KMC, will come up for discussion in the mayoral council meeting on Wednesday, Hakim told Metro.
If approved by the council, the draft policy will be sent to the state government for clearance.
The KMC had prepared draft regulations on outdoor advertisement and published them in May 2022. The civic body sought and received suggestions for changes to the May 2022 draft, some of which have been incorporated.
The mayor had expressed his displeasure with the first draft.
In March last year, Hakim said he was unhappy with the draft regulations and wanted them to be more “scientific”.
“I am not happy with the (draft) advertisement policy. I have suggested some changes. If you travel along roads in Kolkata, there are hoardings one after another and very close to each other,” Hakim had said. “So many hoardings so close to each other do not allow someone sitting in a moving vehicle to register their contents,” he said.
Following Hakim’s prod, the KMC made changes to the regulations.
Some of the features of the redrafted regulations — Kolkata Municipal Corporation (Advertisement Policy), Regulation, 2022 — were published as part of the mayor’s speech when the civic body’s budget for 2024-25 was tabled earlier this month.
“Except for some junctions of major roads, there should not be more than five monopoles within a 1km stretch of any road,” the budget speech said.
An official of the KMC said the roads where the exception would be allowed had yet to be fixed. He said some of the busier arteries such as Park Street may be on the list of exceptions.
The budget speech said: “Temporary commercial advertisements in the form of flex, banners, boards, cut-outs etc. fixed during the occasion of Durga Puja, Kali Puja and alike have to be removed within the specific time frame, failing which KMC will dismantle the same and may impose fine on the advertising agencies, person or company on whose behalf advertisement purpose to be.”
Hundreds of temporary advertisements put up on bamboo frames ahead of festivals like Durga Puja are not removed weeks after the festivals end. During the last Durga Puja, as many as three flexes were put up on some bamboo frames, one above the other, blocking the view of houses behind them and raising questions about evacuation operations during an emergency.
If the redrafted regulations are approved, there could be hope that the advertisers will be informed about the deadline to remove the advertisements when the permission to put up billboards is issued.
Till last year, such deadlines were given verbally and that, too, after the advertisers failed to remove the banners even several days after the festivals ended.
“The advertisement policy will be discussed in the mayoral council meeting on Wednesday,” Hakim said on Tuesday.
The KMC’s budget for 2024-25, which was presented earlier this month, kept the revenue target from advertisements for 2024-25 the same as the current fiscal — Rs 100 crore — though this year’s collection has been far less than the target.
The KMC’s budget estimate for 2023-24 had set a target of raising Rs 100 crore from outdoor advertisements. But in the revised estimate, the target was brought down to Rs 19 crore.