MC Kharar drive to remove illegal hoardings today

THE SITES ARE BEING SOLD TO ADVERTISERS FOR ABOUT ₹60,000 PER MONTH, CAUSING HUGE LOSSES TO

THE EXCHEQUER

MOHALI:THE municipal council of Kharar will start a drive on Monday to remove around 25 illegal hoardings on National Highway-21 and other areas due to which it is incurring losses of around ₹1 crore every year in rent money.

Sangeet Kumar, MC executive officer, has written a letter to Himanshu Jain, sub-divisional magistrate, asking that police be deployed to carry out the drive.

A team of six officials will be on the job, it has been learnt.

A drive planned earlier by the Kharar MC in March was cancelled due to the intervention of director, local bodies, Punjab, following which the lockdown due to the Covid-19 outbreak was imposed.

“I have already instructed the civic body to remove all illegal hoardings in the ambit of the MC area and now they are holding a drive on July 20, for which we will be providing them police support,” Jain said.

The civic body is losing lakhs in advertising revenues because of the hoardings installed illegally, with housing societies the main offenders.

These include Gold Homes and Golden homes, both on the Kharar-landran road and Yakshi Wedding Collection on the Kharar-mohali Road. Pratap Infra alone has set up around 10 hoardings.

The sites are being sold to advertisers for an estimated ₹60,000 per month, causing huge losses to the government exchequer.

According to Sangeet Kumar the rights to remove the illegal installations were with the agency contracted for the task.

“We have provided them the team and police force for holding a drive on July 20,” he said.

MC allots tenders for 40 sites in Kharar, but this year it contracted the work for ₹3.25 crore for nine years. However, as many advertisers use the illegal hoardings it losing around ₹1 crore every year.