HYDRAA sets deadline for removing illegal ad hoardings

Hyderabad:HYDRAA commissioner A.V. Ranganath on Monday set a six-day deadline for advertising agencies to remove all illegal advertisement hoardings. If any illegal hoarding continues to exist after March 9, HYDRAA will remove it.

During a meeting with the representatives of ad agencies, Ranganath said HYDRAA has been working on removing illegal hoardings for three months, and has given enough time for the ad agencies to remove their hoardings.

Going by the number of hoardings in the city, he said, the government should have been getting hundreds of crores of revenue from ad agencies but it was receiving only `20 crore-`30 crore. He said no extension will be given to the deadline after March 9.

The representatives of the ad agencies told the HYDRAA chief that they could not renew the hoarding license because of the delay in the government’s new advertising policy. They said the deadline for paying fees for 2022-23 financial year was on March 31 in 2024, but they could not make payments since the Congress government did not bring a new policy after March 31, holding back payments since the 2022-23 financial year.

Responding to their concerns, Ranganath said that he would take up the matter with the government. “Until a decision is made, hoardings for which payments were made til; March 31 of 2023 will not be removed.”

The issue of HYDRAA removing illegal hoardings heated up on Sunday, when it removed unauthorised hoardings at Balapur.