The Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has issued a notice to all advertising agencies and individuals responsible for erecting around 2,500 illegal billboards to dismantle them.

If the agencies and individuals don’t remove the billboards, the Salt Lake civic body will pull them down, a senior BMC official said. The cost, the official added, will be recovered from the agencies and the individuals.

The move follows an order issued by the division bench of Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya on November 21 that directed the civic body to remove the billboards and recover the associated cost from the advertisers if they refused to dismantle the structures.

The notice, uploaded on the civic body’s website on Sunday, reads: “In compliance with the order dated November 21, 2024, passed by the Hon’ble Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Hon’ble Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya in connection with W.P.A (P) 293 of 2024, in the matter of Dibyayan Banerji vs. The State of West Bengal & Others, all individuals, businesses, and entities are hereby directed to remove all unauthorised hoardings, advertisements, or banners erected and/or arranged to be erected or rented out by them within the local limits of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation within 48 hours of the issuance of this notice.

“Failure to comply with this directive shall result in Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation to be compelled to remove the unauthorised hoardings, advertisements or banners at the cost of the violators. The expenses incurred for such removals shall be charged upon the responsible individuals/parties/agencies/advertisers. This notice is being served as a final warning. All concerned are directed to ensure compliance of this directive to avoid legal action and financial penalties, as per provision.”

A senior BMC official said they had done a detailed survey and geo-tagged the locations of the illegal billboards.

“We may start dismantling the illegal billboards on Wednesday if the advertising agencies and individuals fail to remove them by then. We will start with the blocks in Salt Lake before moving to places along VIP Road,” the official said.

Billboards have mushroomed in Salt Lake, places along VIP Road such as Kaikhali, Teghoria, Baguiati and Kestopur, as well as in Chinar Park and parts of Rajarhat.

The BMC is in charge of providing civic services to all these places.

Mayor Krishna Chakrabarty said: “We have issued a notice asking those responsible for setting up the illegal billboards to take them down. If they don’t comply with the order, we will dismantle them and take legal action against them (the agencies and the individuals).”

A BMC official said only 135 billboards have the civic body’s sanction.

“Even the legal billboards have run a lot of arrears. The advertising agencies and the individuals that have put up the billboards had last paid taxes to the civic body in the financial year 2018-2019,” the official said.

“A meeting will be convened soon to draw a roadmap to recover the outstanding amount.”