BHUBANESWAR: Despite a directive from the Supreme Court, the State Government is yet to make the cities free from illegal hoardings. The hoardings, which were pulled down by the civic body authorities, have reappeared once again putting the administration in a fix.
Sources said the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety had directed the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and the Public Works Department (PWD) to have a safety audit on all the hoardings as most of them pose threat for the pedestrians and traffic.
The apex court had ordered to remove all unauthorised billboards and sought an affidavit from all the states that they have removed all illegal hoardings from their cities and both the sides of National and State Highways.
Empowered by the directives issued by the Supreme Court Committee, the State Government had asked the chiefs of all ULBs and Collectors to submit a report after removing all illegal hoardings in their localities.
Though the Chief Secretary was to produce the affidavit on December 31, it could not be made as only 11 districts managed to submit the report mentioning that they have removed all unauthorised hoardings from their respective ULBs.
An official of Housing and Urban Development Department said all the ULBs and five corporations were asked to remove illegal hoardings by December 10 and submit the status report by December 15. "But barring 11 districts, the rest have not yet submitted the report. They have sought two weeks time. The Chief Secretary has, however, shot off letters to the Collectors of the rest 19 districts to remove the hoardings in a war footing and submit the report soon," he said.
The districts which have submitted the report include Balasore, Deogarh, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Keonjhar, Ganjam, Gajapati, Sambalpur, Subarnapur, Jharsuguda and Malkangiri.
Apart from the delay for submitting affidavit before the apex court, what has kept the State administration in tenterhooks is that many illegal hoardings either have not been removed or started reappearing in most of the districts which have already submitted reports.
Even as Balasore Municipality authority had submitted the report claiming that the city is free from illegal hoardings, many such billboards still dot the city thoroughfare.
Municipality Executive Officer Subash Chandra Jena, however, claimed the instruction was to remove unauthorised hoardings, which were not paying rent.
Besides creating congestions, illegal hoardings across the State have been posing threat to the general public. The directive of State Election Commission (SEC) to remove hoardings on different schemes of both the State Government and Centre has also not been followed properly. The SEC has once again directed to remove these hoardings.