SC orders removal of billboards from greenbelts, footpaths

Karachi
The Supreme Court directed the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and other civic agencies on Thursday to remove all hoardings from greenbelts and footpaths of the city.
At a hearing regarding illegal advertising signboards and hoardings in the city, a two-member bench headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali observed that mostly these hoardings were installed by encroaching footpaths and roads and posed a permanent danger to pedestrians and commuters.
It also took notice of the failure of representatives of different land-owning and civic agencies, including the Korangi Cantonment Board, Malir Cantonment, Faisal Cantonment and Station Commander Headquarters, to appear, and issued show-cause notices to their heads for disobeying the court directives.
The KMC, Karachi Cantonment, Clifton Cantonment, Rangers and Coast Guards filed their statements submitting that no billboards or hoardings had been installed at footpaths in their respective sites.
A KMC officer admitted billboards had been installed at greenbelts. The court observed that several people had lost their lives when these signboards had fallen in rains in the past.
It ordered the removal of all billboards from footpaths and greenbelts along the roads.
The DIG admin of the police, Asif Razak, informed that all billboards had been removed from the site of the police stations except at the Aziz Bhatti police station, which would be removed today. He submitted that incomes from the billboards were utilised for welfare activities in the police department.
The court observed that the police had better raise plazas and start a business if they wanted to earn money. It said shopping centres and stores were also being constructed at military reserved land and if the authorities wanted to continue such an exercise then common citizens should be asked to stop performing their businesses.
The director local taxes of the KMC submitted that the billboard department had been shifted to the district municipal corporations of the city. The court directed the KMC to submit a compliance report by August 26.
The SC had earlier observed that permission for the installation of heavy billboards could not be granted by the land-owning or civic agencies of the city as that act was violative of fundamental rights of the citizens. The KMC had submitted a report mentioning that hoardings were allowed through public auction for streets and overhead bridges and flyovers. It had said there were 17 civil and other land-owning agencies that issued permissions for the installation of hoardings.