Ad Policies & Regulations

Lucknow Nagar Nigam brings down roadside media

The Nagar Nigam’s action is being attributed to the fact that the body no long enjoys the right to directly raise taxes from the advertising industry

Published

November 13, 2018

Bhawana Anand

No sooner were the Diwali celebrations over in the city of Lucknow, than the Lucknow Nagar Nigam caught the local OOH industry unawares by deciding to remove all roadside media in the city. As many as 483 media units of 20ft x 10ft dimension had been removed without any prior notice the concerned media owners. The ground-level media format is one of the oldest outdoor advertising formats that was available in the city, and the units had been tendered to the respective media owners some 20-22 years ago.

Commenting on this unexpected action by the local urban body, Atul from Shobha Publicity, owner of a significant number of roadside media, told Media4Growth, “This was an abrupt decision taken by the authority without issuing any notice to us. We didn’t have any time to save the media.”

He reckoned that the civic body’s action must have been precipitated by the implementation of GST after which the local urban body couldn’t have directly raised taxes from the industry, although a certain portion of the GST revenues cascades down to the urban local bodies.

Atul also stated that the industry was prepared to pay any additional tax or cess to the local body under any alternative provision, for the continuance of roadside advertising business, but the Lucknow Nagar Nigam thought otherwise.

To fight against this step, the media owners are planning to approach the court of law. With the roadside media out of business, the city has tendered unipoles, tree guard media, private sites and bqs media for advertising, apart from the Lucknow Metro media that is now pivotal to the city’s OOH business.