Delhi's municipal bodies crack down on unauthorised media

All three municipal corporations of Delhi have started cracking the whip against unauthorised outdoor display sites put up in different parts of the city. The crackdown was initiated after the Delhi High Court directed the three municipal corporations to take action against unauthorised sites. The court had cleared stated that outdoor display sites in violation of the Outdoor Advertisement Policy 2007 should be removed.

Since July 4, some 1,100 such hoardings have been dismantled and the drive will continue for some time. The corporations are also obtaining daily updates from their personnel on the action being taken in this regard.

While talking to Media4Growth, Bipin Bihari, Deputy Mayor, East Delhi Municipal Corporation explained: "There was a lot of illegal work going on. We checked our tender lists through which we figured out that a lot of sites of C grade category sites were placed at Grade A sites which was causing us huge revenue losses. Also, sites were put up under some of the contracts that have lapsed. Moreover, even our department staff were not aware about some of those sites. We cracked down on all such sites".

This time the corporation doesn't seem to be going easy on the mater. Bihari said, "We will continue to keep an eye on such activities. This can't be done alone by site owners but also involves our people. So, if we come across some more such sites in the future, we will dismiss our deputy personnel as well".

Yogendra Singh Mann, Director (P&I) said, "We are going to auction media in clusters as per the Supreme Court policies where media owners will create those sites and they will be responsible for illegal sites. Also, it will help them to generate more revenues and leading to fair business dealings".