Authorities remain silent despite HC order to remove risky, illegal hoardings
Billboards in the capital have started collapsing with the approach of the storm season while authorities are sitting on a High Court order for removing risky hoardings.
Around 90 percent billboards on roofs and 75 percent on roads in Dhaka are illegal.
Deaths and damage of property due to fall of poorly mounted billboards has been a regular phenomenon particularly during the storm season. For instance, a giant billboard collapsed on Mirpur Road near Dhanmondi Road-8 during the storm in the early hours Wednesday.
An HC bench on April 29 last year revoked an earlier stay on demolishing hazardous rooftop billboards and asked the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) and the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) to knock down all illegal billboards.
However, Rajuk has not removed a single rooftop billboard since while DCC removes a scanty number on an irregular once-a-week basis.
Rajuk Chairman Md Nurul Huda said they could not initiate the removal process due to lack of manpower.
“We will take measures once our request for more manpower is approved,” he said.
The court directed the authorities to immediately remove the unauthorised billboards on streets and roofs in the capital to save lives and property of citizens.
Two people were killed and eight others injured when a loosely mounted hoarding on Gulshan Shopping Centre at Gulshan-1 collapsed on March 15, 2009. One got crushed under a billboard near Shahjalal International Airport on May 6, 2009.
A number of illegal billboards at a filling station on Kuril Biswa Road collapsed and killed two people on June 16, 2006. Security guard Hazrat Ali also lost his life in a similar accident on Pragati Sarani.
Although there is no exact log of illegal rooftop billboards, Rajuk sources said the number is no less than 4,000.
Rajuk (Zone-1) identified 600 illegal rooftop hoardings in Dhanmondi, Lalmatia, Panthapath, Green Road, Manipuri Para and Sutrapur areas in 2007.
Till last year, the number of DCC-authorised billboards was 846 -- 294 on DCC land, 200 on private land and 352 on central reservations of roads, said DCC Chief Town Planner Sirajul Islam, adding that, the rest -- a several thousand -- are illegal.
He said, “DCC can demolish only three to eight hoarding during a drive.”
Rajuk officials said any kind of rooftop structure including billboards is a violation of Building Act.
In 2007, Rajuk issued a notice asking land owners and advertisement firms to remove all unauthorised billboards from roofs. In reply, Rafiqul Islam, president of Outdoor Advertisement Owners' Association, filed a writ petition in September that year challenging Rajuk notice and the HC stayed implementation of the notice.
The stay was extended in October and since then advertising firms went on setting up hoardings.
On Thursday, Rafiqul Islam said Rajuk should have pulled down illegal rooftop billboards and that the association has no reason to demolish any.
DCC collects tax for any existing billboard, he claimed.
News Source: The Daily Star