M A I N   N E W S

Hoardings dot highways in Haryana
Govt flouts SC ruling to list achievements
Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

Kurukshetra, October 14
Directions of the Supreme Court given in 1997 that all highways and important roads should be free from hoardings and display boards notwithstanding, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) government in Haryana has launched a massive programme of “displaying its achievements” on huge (15’x10’) hoardings throughout the state.

Hundreds of such colourful hoardings have not only started replacing important public information signboards, but are also dotting the national and state highways, besides strategic traffic intersections throughout the state.

Many of these hoardings have replaced similar hoardings erected on the eve of “Sanman Samaroh” organised last month in Karnal to commemorate the birth anniversary of Ch Devi Lal, former Deputy Prime Minister and father of present Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala. One such hoarding near Kunjpura Chowk in Karnal has pictures of only Ch Devi Lal and Ch Om Prakash Chautala left. The rest has been given a fresh coat of white paint.

A Tribune team which undertook an extensive tour of Kurukshetra and Karnal districts found that in a 100-metre stretch of Nilokheri on National Highway No 1, besides four hoardings, two overarching signboards, erected to display direction and distance of towns , have also been gobbled up to highlight achievements of the INLD government.

The hoardings are by Hafed, Haryana Warehousing Corporation, Karnal Sudhar Sabha, Agro Industries Corporation, Karnal Sugar Mill, HUDA, Agricultural Marketing Board, Cooperative Apex Bank, Cooperative Agriculture Development Bank, Dairy Development Cooperative Federation (Vita), Vidyut Prasaran Nigam, Power Generation Corporation and Bijli Vitran Nigam, Forest Development Corporation, Police Housing Corporation, Nilokheri Municipal Committee, Youth Wing of INLD (Karnal unit), and several others.

These hoardings have been sponsored by various public sector undertakings, cooperative societies, local bodies and other such organisations which draw a substantial part of their finances from the state government. While putting up these hoardings on National Highway No 1 and other important roads, the state agencies perhaps overlooked the clear directions of the Apex Court as well as the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court had in its order of July, 1998, referred to the Apex Court order on regulating vehicular traffic with “greater emphasis on removal of all hoardings and advertisement boards on the roadside which were considered hazardous and disturbance to safe traffic movement”. The High Court passed a series of directions on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) case to make road traffic safe.

“Following the mandate of the Apex Court, we direct that all the signboards, hoardings, neon signboards, advertisement boards facing the highways, main road and the side roads and lanes shall be removed within a period of one month from the date of pronouncement of this judgment.”

“It is made clearly that firstly the State Administration or competent authority concerned shall call upon the holder of such boards to remove the same within 15 days. In the event of their failure to do so, the state shall remove the same by its enforcement agencies. It shall be ensured that boards are removed and the iron or concrete pillars on which such boards are fixed are demolished or removed. The expense so incurred by the state shall be recovered from the owner of the land as arrears of land revenue, if not paid on demand.”

As a sequel to this direction, a massive massive campaign was launched by the Punjab and Haryana Governments and the Chandigarh Administration to remove all such hoardings from the roadside.

Even special inspections were conducted at the instance of the High Court to ensure that no such hoardings dotted the highways, important roads and traffic islands.

But things are once again drifting back to pre-1998 days. In Kurukshetra, for example, important signboards of public interest, like directions to the district administration complex, office of the Deputy Commissioner or Superintendent of Police, district courts or even places of historic interest, have been uprooted and replaced by these “achievement hoardings”.

The decision of the Haryana Government to put up “achievement boards” dates back to July 17 this year when Mr B.D. Dahlia, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, convened a meeting of Managing Directors of various corporations and boards of the Haryana Government. Though no minutes of the meeting were circulated, two items — contribution to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund and putting up of hoardings of uniform size displaying achievements of the INLD government — were discussed.

Though initially many of the PSUs had shown some reluctance, making their poor fiscal position as an excuse, in making dead investment in hoardings, yet they relented and agreed to do the tasks assigned to them. The fear of an immediate enquiry against those “not cooperating” perhaps worked .

“It is better to avoid an immediate enquiry now than face a similar ordeal later by the next government for indulging in ‘wasteful expenditure’,” remarked a senior officer after the meeting as Deputy Commissioners were appointed nodal officers to decide the number of hoardings and their placement in their respective districts.

The expenses on hoardings and their erections are being borne by the PSUs. Those MDs claiming proximity to the Chief Minister and his family promised to put up 300 or even more hoardings while others agreed to sponsor around 100 hoardings each. Each hoarding, weighing about 24 kg without its wooden and steel frame, will cost around Rs 20,000.

The PSUs were later told that they would have to bear the expenses on the erection of these hoardings at vantage points also. The cost worked out to be Rs 12,000 for one hoarding. Some of these are being fabricated at Karnal unit of the Haryana Agro Industries Corporation (HAIC). A conservative estimate suggests that these hoardings will cough up around Rs 12 crore to Rs 15 crore.