Will hold mega drive against defacement in Haryana cities: Urban Local Bodies Minister

The Urban Local Bodies Department will run a mega cleanliness drive in the cities within the next fortnight to remove defacement due to posters, stickers and advertising material.

This was stated by Urban Local Bodies Minister Vipul Goel on the last day of the ongoing Vidhan Sabha session in response to a calling attention motion moved by Congress MLAs BB Batra, Aftab Ahmed and Geeta Bhukkal.  Goel said the pasting of posters and flexes on public properties and buildings by private individuals, institutions, establishments and others for advertising of their own business is an illegal activity under the Haryana Prevention of Defacement of Property Act, 1989, and the Haryana Municipal Acts.

The minister said the government had notified the Haryana Municipal Advertisement bylaws on July 15, 2022 for the purpose of regulating and allowing legal way of advertisements within municipal areas. “There is need to amend the bylaws,” the minister said, suggesting that these could be made more stringent.

He said the municipalities were taking regular action for removal of defacement and penalising the violators. As per action-taken reports received from the municipalities, a total of 1,915 notices had been issued to violators and a total of 3,022 enforcement drives had been conducted. In these drives, a total of 1,08,334 poster, bills, stickers, advertisements and flexes had been removed between 2023-24 and 2024-25 (to date).

Earlier, Batra, stating that cities across the state were full of defacement through posters of political leaders and organisations, suggested that all posters should carry the name of the printer and their mobile number and warnings be put up as a deterrent. Bhukkal opined that the accountability of municipal chairpersons and local councillors be fixed while Ahmed said political parties should be roped in to discourage the misuse of public property.