BBMP to remove all hoardings in city

BENGALURU:  Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Administrator Gaurav Gupta and Commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad on Saturday directed engineers and corporation officials to remove all unauthorised hoardings in the city and initiate legal action against those who permitted and installed them.

The orders, issued during an inspection of the city, came a day after the Karnataka High Court ordered the State government to remove all Covid awareness hoardings that contained advertisements.

The Administrator and Commissioner and also inaugurated the smart parking mechanism on 10 city roads — Cunningham Road, MG Road, Kasturba Road, St Mark’s Road, Residency Road, Museum Cross Road, Vittal Mallya Road, Mallya Hospital Road, Church Street and Ali Asker Road.

They also directed engineers to ensure that arterial and sub-arterial roads are swept and cleaned. They inspected Anepalya Junction, where work has been delayed due to TDR, HSR Layout service road (Silk Board) work which has been stalled because of footpath encroachment by nurseries, and Sarjapura Road widening work. 

During the inspection, Bommanahalli MLA Satish Reddy told the two top officials that during rain, water from Bellandur and Madiwala lakes flows back into stormwater drains and floods low-lying areas. Even the construction of three small drains in the past has not helped.

Prasad said that another small diversion drain will soon be constructed to address the problem. Prasad and Gupta inaugurated a new road line-marking machine, which will allow engineers to paint zebra crossings and white lines on roads faster than by hand. It can cover 5-9 km of road length in an hour.