Big Brother BBMP watching hoardings

Big Brother BBMP watching hoardings
Chandrashekar G | TNN

Bangalore: Political parties better watch out before displaying advertisement materials in pubic places and disfiguring the city’s aesthetics.
To keep a strict vigil on violation of code of conduct, Bangalore district electoral officer and BBMP special commissioner (administration) B S Ramprasad has constituted 50 squads covering 21 assembly constituencies.
What will the squads do? Keep a hawk’s eye on political parties that put up buntings and banners without approval. This amounts to violation of code of conduct and cognizable offence attracting six-month imprisoned or penalty or both.
The squads would be headed by officers from health, engineering and police departments. “Display of hoardings, buntings and advertisement material without BBMP’s permission amounts to violation of the Karnataka Open Places (Prevention of Disfigurement) Act 1981. The police, too, are authorized to initiate action,’’ Ramprasad told The Times of India.
However, penalty would be announced by the court or imprisonment, depending on the gravity of the violation. Presently, the BBMP health officials are pulling down buntings, hoardings and other forms of advertisements and some party workers have been removing such publicity materials voluntarily. BBMP commissioner S Subramanya had filed nine complaints against a few political parties for unauthorized display of advertisements and greetings during festivals.
The election commission will soon come out with guidelines on advertisement materials to be used for publicizing candidature and party.
How to seek permission? A request form seeking permission for display of advertisements should be submitted with material details — banners, buntings and cutouts used for advertisement purpose. Based on this, fees would be decided.
For banners, cutouts and buntings, rates will be fixed based on the length and width, and maximum width and length for cutouts is 10x10ft. Permission would be granted only for a maximum of seven days initially. Later, it has to be renewed failing which the BBMP health officials have been authorized to pull them down.