Ban the Billboard

The news item

GVMC BILLBOARD PLANS

Recent newspaper reports on GVMC’s plan to appoint an external agency to handle their Billboard tax collection are quite alarming. Here is why

Billboards hinder pedestrians

Our cities have no pavements and very little open space in commercial areas where billboards can be accommodated. Pedestrians struggle to walk even 10 feet on Vizag city pavements because they are so rare and when available they are interrupted by missing death trap slabs, electrical poles, open electric switch boxes and the ubiquitous panipuri and noodle vendor. 

Billboards spawn businesses below

Drawn by the structure of the board, billboards soon become an attraction for myriad street vendors. Before you know it a scooter repair shop, a fruit vendor and the idly cart have occupied the pavement below and tied their temporary shades to the frame of the billboard. Within days what little pavement is available is gone for ever. So you have no option but to walk on the road and get run down by the car behind you.

Billboards kill off our trees

Whether the billboards are on GVMC or private lands it doesn’t matter. Advertisers want a clear view of their billboard they insist that the tree branches that block the board must be removed. So the trees are cut off to make the boards visible. Now how do you compare the cost of a tree – a marvellous CO2 absorbing engine - to the pittance of tax received from a billboard?

Billboards block facades

When buildings are made we spend money on getting facades designed by architects. The artwork and brochures show beautiful street full of manicured trees, a few cars and well-dressed folk walking around the building. Then a large hoarding advertising an anti-dandruff shampoo springs up right in front of your building and your façade is gone for a six. The billboard does not distinguish between your modern building and that beautiful old structure with a century old façade – they are all blocked impartially.

Billboards cause accidents

When you drive past that billboard with a 15 feet tall, midriff flaunting model advertising the 500 gram gold vaddanam on her comely curves, what you gonna watch; the billboard or the car that just braked abruptly in front of you? Whatever the ad on the bill board, they are a distraction for motorists and are notorious for causing accidents. I remember the sticker at the back of a car reading “If you can read this – you are too close”. The billboard might as well say “If you are reading this call 108”.

Billboards are uncultured

No civilized modern city encourages billboards. All over the world the best cities have hardly any billboards, and the few which are there are mainly brand messages, highly standardized in size, aesthetically designed, having less than 6 words on them, long enough for a passing car to absorb  and are astronomically expensive to discourage overuse. Now don’t give me the Times Square New York example. Those who have been there will tell you that they are restricted to a small area, take up megawatts of electricity, serve as a tourist attraction and are epitomes of creativity.

The catch

Outsourcing the collections to an external agent may sound like a good idea at first. But here is the catch. Considering how our administration databases are managed, it is very unlikely that our corporation will have records of the location of the billboard, who they belong to, their dimensions, and the lessee’s name, whether they are on private or public land, lit or unlit, and so on. Further, many of the billboards will be mired in litigation between the land owner, the lessee who invested in the hardware and the advertiser. Eventually it will be left to the agent to get these details. The agent will typically be a “recommended” organisation.  Going by the management capabilities of such parties, you can be sure that they will never ever be able to compile the database required to put a price on the venture. So they will proceed on an approximation and find to their dismay that for several reasons, they are unable to collect adequate money to meet their liabilities.

Billboard jungle

In order to make up for the non-yielding billboards, the agent will go into overdrive, farming out hundreds of new hoardings; little ones, big ones, silly ones, political ones, ugly ones, illegal ones, roof top ones, on shops, on apartments on compound walls everywhere!  Soon Vizag will be re-christened from “The City of Destiny” to “The city of Billboards”.

Chennai example

From 1990 to 2005 Chennai went through the burgeoning growth of billboards. When it went out of control the corporation woke up and wanted to remove the illegal hoardings.  Everyone went to the courts and got stay orders. This went on for years till finally in 2006 they got a window of opportunity, and armed with the directions of the honourable Madras High Court around 4,000 hoardings were removed in one shot. Public in most major cities of India are asking for the hoarding madness to be stopped. Vizag should end this ill-advised move right away before it’s too late. There are several creative ways to raise funds – we don’t need billboards to fund our corporation.