Torn and battered advertisements are hanging from billboards across the city, making the skyline and the streets look ugly. Some of the hoardings are also run down and rickety.

The torn flexes are almost everywhere. Anyone travelling through EM Bypass or the Parama flyover will see a series of billboards with torn advertisement flexes fluttering from the frames.

Such sights are also common in Chandni Chowk and Gariahat, and along Chowringee Road, among other pockets in the city.

An official of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) said the flexes were torn during the recent thunderstorms. The KMC is responsible for regulating advertisements in the city.

Mayor Firhad Hakim recently told The Telegraph that the KMC would launch a drive to pull down illegal hoardings.

“There are a number of illegal hoardings in the city. We will crack down on such hoardings. A message must be sent that illegal hoardings cannot be put up anywhere,” he had said.

Kesto Saha, the director of Karukrit, a leading outdoor advertising agency, said the onus is on the agencies that have the rights to display advertisements to remove the torn flexes.

“There is a forecast of more storms. Most agencies are wary of putting up new advertisements and pull down the old ones because they fear another storm will damage the new flexes,” said Saha. “The agencies who have put up the advertisements are responsible for removing the damaged flexes.”

Architect Abin Chaudhuri, who has designed many public spaces in the city, said the torn hoardings are making the city look ugly.

“If one looks up standing on streets, he will see these pieces of flexes tied to the frames and fluttering in the air. It looks shabby and ugly,” Chaudhuri said.

“Our civic authorities must rethink about how advertisements should be displayed in our city. There are too many billboards. So many of them should not be allowed in a city.”

The torn flexes are mostly hanging from private hoardings, which are the ones with iron frames attached to buildings at some height above roads.

Outdoor advertising agencies register these hoardings with the KMC before displaying advertisements. “Around 2,500 private hoardings are registered with us,” said an official of the KMC.

Sources said hundreds of more such hoardings have been put up without the KMC’s knowledge.

There is another category of hoardings in Calcutta. These are street hoardings and there are about 410 of them.

The street hoardings are owned by the KMC and their poles rise from pavements.

Many of the private hoardings and street hoardings have rusted. The rickety hoardings, especially the street hoardings, have tin plates fluttering in the air.

Rusted tin plates of street hoardings hang dangerously over pavements along Camac Street and Park Street. A street hoarding that has rusted stands over the pavement outside the GST Bhavan in Kasba.

The KMC had in May 2022 published draft regulations on outdoor advertisements. The civic body sought and received suggestions for changes to the draft, some of which have been incorporated.

The policy, which aims to cut down on the number of hoardings in the city, has not been adopted yet.