BMC draft policy on hoardings covers a wide spectrum including ad on skywalks, balloons, stationary vehicles

In the effort to enforce stringent norms governing outdoor advertising in the city of Mumbai, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has proposed a draft policy for hoardings in the city that not only covers the large format media but advertisements on skywalks, balloons, stationary vehicles, and business premises, as was reported by The Times of India.

To address the issue of visual clutter, the urban local body has suggested setting a minimum distance of 70 meters between two large hoardings, whereas the minimum distance between stationary vehicles used for advertising would have to be 30 meters, and 10ft in the case of skywalks and foot overbridges.

Also, under the new draft policy, the hoardings near high-tension wires will require a “no-objection certificate (NOC)” from the power distribution firm. And, for illuminated digitised hoarding, an NOC from the joint commissioner of traffic police will be made mandatory.

Reports cite that BMC has proposed to affix QR codes on billboards, whereby scanning them will provide details relating to the date of license issuance, size of hoarding, validity, owner details, including contact.

The draft policy will also contain guidelines for DOOH advertising, which will be known in the next few days. The overall draft policy will soon be placed in the public domain for suggestions and objections.