Punjab OOH players waiting expectantly for a new outdoor policy

Outdoor advertising tenders and new projects in Punjab have come to a grinding halt after the Cabinet minister of Punjab Government Navjot Singh Sidhu recently announced that a new outdoor advertising policy will be announced. The prime objective of the minister is to grow the state’s revenues from outdoor advertising.

Against this backdrop, a unipole tender in Ludhiana, which was expected to be released by the local body there, has been restrained. Likewise, a tender for Mohali media rights was cancelled on the day the tender was scheduled to open.

While talking to Media4Growth exclusively on this matter, Ludhiana based media owners stated that all advertising projects have been put on hold and no new development is happening in any part of Punjab region on the OOH front. “However, this is not affecting the business as such because recently few formats were tendered by the authority. Also considering the current situation of the market, the occupancy rate is only around 50% due to which the vendors don’t see any investment prospects. Moreover, this is a matter of 15 days to a month,” said Shavinder Singh Sandhu, Director, Lead Ads.

As per the industry, the advertising policy is almost ready wherein some amendments are being made by the authorities and is expected to be out in a month’s time. Kanwar Inder Singh, Director, Advantage Advertising said, “The situation is quite unclear as we can’t predict anything about the policy. Some revision of taxe rates is expected which is a matter for concern for media owners. Also the outdoor advertising policy in the Punjab region was designed only two years back and the entire acquisition and media placement had been done accordingly. If the new policy demands some changes that will call for more investments from media owners’ side”.