Lucknow outdoor business faced with policy perils

OOH business in the city of Lucknow faced great uncertainty when the Lucknow Nagar Nigam issued an order to remove all outdoor media displays. Such action meant that even authorised media would be axed. “A letter was issued to the zonal officers to take down the entire media without any formal communication to us,” said one of the local OOH business leaders.

The media owners met with the authority to put their points across. “We met the authority to understand the issue and as a result now they are taking stringent action only against illegal media prevailing in the trade which is beneficial to us,” he said.

“However, we aren’t sure if our trade is safe as yet as there is a code of conduct in place in the city due to l elections. But if any such action gets repeated we will go to the apex court to safeguard our businesses. As per the order released by the High Court of Lucknow in 2009-2010, the outdoor medium can be regulated or modified but can’t be taken out completely from the city”, the media owner said.