'Clear Chennai' to hit lakhs of families

Chennai, Jan 11: Uncertainty looms large over the survival of one lakh plus families and the business circle, who took to the outdoor advertising medium, following the reported desire of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi to see a 'clear Chennai City', without any hoardings.

State Electricity Minister Arcot Veerasamy even issued a press statement indicating that his family members had removed a hoarding erected atop a building in a prime location in the city.

The Tamil Nadu Outdoor Advertising Association (TNOAA), the apex advertising body in the state, comprising 49 advertising agencies in Chennai alone, strongly appealed the state government to regulate the hoardings industry instead of going for an all-out demolition drive.

Referring to Electricity Minister's statement that Mr Karunanidhi had envisioned a ''hoarding-free city'', the TNOAA members said authorised hoardings provided an affordable form of advertising and was a regular source of income for the government.

A decision to totally remove all hoardings would lead to a loss of income for several families dependent on the industry.

According to the statistics given by TNOAA, hoardings, the outdoor advertising medium, has witnessed a sharp increase of about 100 per cent over the last five years in Chennai.

From 2,092 billboards in 2001, the number has now been touching 4,103 mark in the city.

In Chennai alone there are about 5,000 hoardings followed by Coimbatore (2,000), Madurai (1,700), Salem (1,500), Tirunelveli (1,000) and in Trichy about 750, the sources said.

The association has about 2,000 hoardings under its control which includes public, private and railway sites.

The city hoarding business alone accounts for Rs 25 crore per year and and in Tamil Nadu the business moves about 35 crore out of the country's estimated outdoor hoarding turnover of Rs 483 crore.

''Instead of removing unauthorised hoardings and regularising the activity, the government is depriving the one lakh plus families depending upon the trade directly or indirectly,'' TNOAA secretary A G Nayakam told UNI.

''There are innumerable political banners across the city were going unnoticed'', he said.

He pointed out that hoardings were present in other metros and major cities but the other governments had regulated them. ''It is our wish too that the state government regularises the industry.

Much of the bad reputation for the industry stems from the unauthorised operators,'' he added.

The TNOAA said as per the records of the Chennai Collectorate, 1,291 hoardings had come up in the city between June 2001 and December 2006. The Supreme Court had passed an order recently, asking the government to regulate the hoardings industry by issuing licences and maintain a ''status quo'' till the applications for licences were scrutinised and disposed of. Mr Nayagam said it was clear that the 1,291 hoardings in the Collectorate list would be deemed illegal straight away.

Fifty two-year-old scaffolder Kannan, who got a regular daily income from outdoor advertisers, now feared the government's plans to remove all hoardings in the city. He said, ''if the government goes on with its plan, my whole family, which is in the field for the past 13 years, would literally starve''.

''We dont have expertise for any other work to earn our daily bread'', he added.

Mr Rajagopal, owner of Krishna Publicity, further pointed out that the hoarding industry is 40-year-old and the agencies have also been paying the lease rent and advertisement tax to the authorities regularly.

Hoardings is one of the most affordable mediums that had a social relevance, it is used to propagate the message of issues like AIDS and family planning, he added.

With the Chennai Collectorate drawing up a list of unauthorised hoardings in the city on one side, official sources from the government said Chennai Corporation workers are expected to help the tahsildars in implementing the removal of unauthorised hoardings, which is likely to start soon.

UNI