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GHMC identifies 200 dangerous hoardings
With the High Court’s intervention, the civic body then decided to pull down hoardings whose structural stability was in question.
Hyderabad: A high-level committee of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has identified about 200 hoardings as “hazardous.”
The information was revealed after civic body had decided to carry out a study on hoardings after the hoarding belonging to the Unipole collapsed at Jubilee Hills check-post, which caused major destruction to private property.
With the High Court’s intervention, the civic body then decided to pull down hoardings whose structural stability was in question.
It appointed a high-level committee with additional commissioner (Revenue) J Shankaraiah, Chief City Planner S Devender Reddy, Chief Engineer Md Imtiaz Ahmed, Additional Commissioner (Finance) D Jayaraj Kennedy and experts from JNTU-H and IIT. The committee was assigned to study the structural stability of the hoardings. Five consultants - Civil-Aid Technoclinic Pvt. Ltd, Speller and Jockey – are assisting committe.
A senior GHMC official on the condition of anonymity told The Hans India that the consultants had so far examined 1,900 hoardings. Of them, about 200 hoardings in the city were found to be very vulnerable. The committee felt that these hoardings could collapse anytime, the official said.
He said that the team also found that several advertisment agencies had violated norms and had either increased the size of the hoarding or erected them with a poor quality metal.
The official also said most of these hoardings were adjacent to busy roads and they had the potential not only to cause severe damage to private and public property, but pose serious threat to the lives of civilians.
The committee expressed the opinion that public safety norms were thrown to the winds by several advertising agencies who increased the height of their hoardings to grab greater attention.
Ad agencies have increased the height of their hoardings at prime locations, especially near flyovers, bridges and foot-over-bridges, stating that metro rail works were hampering their visibility.
There are more than 600 hoardings such hoardings in Hyderabad which did not posses certificates issued by structural engineers. When asked about some vulnerable hoardings, the GHMC official said the corporation would demolish them immediately and ask the ad agencies to repair and prepare the remaining according to structural norms.
He said the corporation would not hesitate to file criminal cases on agencies if they failed to take certificate from authorised structural engineers. He also said such ad agencies would be blacklisted and terminated from their contract.
The GHMC official further said that after inspecting the structural stability of these unauthorised hoardings, they were planning to regularise those which were found to be strong.
He said the GHMC in order to enhance the revenue on hoardings also decided to collect rent from the hoardings at all 45 graveyards.The GHMC at present has been collecting minimum tax on them.
By:Maddy Deekshith
