Illegal banners and hoardings still abound in large areas of Gurugram

GURUGRAM: It took an untimely and painful death of 23-year-old techie Subhashree to make citizens realise the dangers of illegal hoardings and banners. It is election time in Gurugram, an event that has become an excuse for party workers of various parties to use the public property for not only defacing the property but also putting the commuters at risk by installing various hoardings.

More than a week after the accident in Chennai, illegal haordings and banner continue to pose challenges to the commuters in the city.

Just three days after the accident in Chennai on September 15, the Gurugram traffic police had received a complaint on its social media where one of the workers of a party was brazen enough to put the banner on the traffic lights.

The banner was eventually removed by the officials of Gurugram traffic police.

For a city that is no stranger in seeing a lot of illegal hoardings and being put at several places, the sudden accident caused in Chennai has forced the authorities to act.

Despite a stringent section of Haryana property defacement act 1989, no charges have been framed in the recent months that has resulted in not only partyworkers but even small businesses blatantly flouting the norms.

It is important to note that under the Haryana property defacement act (1989), there can be a fine of Rs 10,000 that can be levied failing which there is also a provison of imprisonment of certain months.

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) in collaboration with Gurugram traffic police on their part have now begun to remove the posters in several areas.

The MCG has allotted 233 places where the political parties and small businesses can do promotions.

In various parts of Old Gurugram however, the problem still exists. Some of the areas where a large number of illegal hoardings can be seen are Maharaja Agrasen Chowk, Old bus stand area Bhim Nagar, Shivaji Nagar, Subash Chowk, and Sector-56.

“To say that no action has been taken against illegal hoarding will be slightly unfair. We have already removed the illegal hoardings from various places and based on the complaints from several citizens we keep carrying out campaigns to remove such hoardings,” said a senior official from MCG.

“As a party, we encourage our party workers to only put banners in those places that do not cause inconvenience to the citizens. We do not support the idea of cheap promotion of self where hoardings and banners are being put illegally,” said a member of the political party.