The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) on Tuesday sent a notice to all advertisers, outdoor advertising agencies and Durga Puja organisers asking them to remove by Thursday all banners and flexes put up before the Puja.
The notice, issued by the KMC commissioner, mentions that the banners and flexes are still looming over roads and pavements though the Puja is long over. It threatens a penalty against the agencies if the flexes are not removed by Thursday.
The notice, however, does not fix a deadline for the removal of the bamboo frames that still block roads and pavements.
It has been a week since Dashami (October 24). Offices and schools have reopened but the banners and the bamboo frames on which the banners were hung still occupy a portion of the roads, cutting off space and slowing down traffic.
They are also a threat to public safety as their structural stability has never been checked.
“All the advertisers and advertising agencies are hereby informed that some temporary banners/cut-outs/flexes put up during the Durga Puja-2023 are still being displayed though Durga Puja-2023 is over,” the notice says.
A copy of the notice is with The Telegraph.
Although it is addressed to advertisers and advertising agencies, the KMC sent a copy of the notice to the Forum for Durgotsab, an umbrella association of Durga Puja organisers.
“All such temporary advertisements need to be removed/dismantled/taken down within 7 (seven) days from the date of Puja Carnival i.e. on or before 02/11/2023 (Thursday),” the notice says.
“If the same is not done by this stipulated point of time, Advertisement Department, KMC, may impose a fine as per Sec. 203 (8) of the KMC Act.”
Section 203 (8) of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act says that “if any person erects, exhibits, fixes or retains any advertisement… without paying the fees under this Chapter, he shall be punished with a fine, which may extend to three times payable as such fees”.
Under instructions from chief minister Mamata Banerjee, all such advertisements in Kolkata are exempt from the civic levy.
"There is a fixed rate for temporary advertisements and it depends on the size. The penalty will be three times the amount the organisers would have paid had they been charged for the banners," a KMC official said.
On Tuesday, this newspaper found banners and flexes on Rakhal Mukherjee Road and Beltala Road in Bhowanipore, Ekdalia Road in Ballygunge, Asutosh Mukherjee Road, CR Avenue, Beni Nandan Road in Bhowanipore and on the median divider of Asutosh Mukherjee Road.
Debashis Kumar, mayoral council member of the KMC’s advertisement department, said it’s time the hoardings were removed.
The hoardings may have been taken down in many places, but the bamboo frames still occupy a portion of, or even fully block, a lane or a pavement.
Ratul Biswas, a director of Arun Sign Service, an outdoor advertising agency, said: “Some agencies that put up banners were hired at a very low rate. The margin will further come down if they hire additional people to take down the banners. That is why there are still banners on roads and pavements.”
The banners that are left behind eventually start to tear apart and fall on roads. They are then taken away by KMC teams and dumped at the Dhapa waste disposal site.
Several recyclers authorised by the state pollution control board to collect and recycle banners and flexes said not a single Puja organiser or advertising agency had contacted them for recycling banners.
Waste management experts said they were concerned that the banners would eventually break down into microplastic and enter agricultural fields and water bodies.