IIlegal posters featuring politicians deface city

Ravneet Singh

Tribune News Service

Patiala, February 19

Municipal Commissioner Sanjeev Sharma Bittu today said flex boards are illegally put up by people on their own at various places in the city using pictures of Congress leaders, including himself. With the statement, the Mayor happened to question the inability of the Municipal Corporation to tackle misuse of pictures of the Chief Minister, MP Preneet Kaur and his own in illegally put up advertisements across the city.

This was while the flex boards in question that featured the leaders carried names of councillors and other political leaders who issued them.

The Mayor intervened and retorted the statement in response to a question directed at Member Parliament Preneet Kaur while the latter simply ignored the question and walked on during inauguration of a newly constructed over-bridge on Choti Nadi near the Sanauri Adda. The MP was accompanied by PWD minister Vijay Inder Singla.

As a matter of fact, over a dozen flex were illegally put up at the site, almost all featuring the local leaders themselves.

Mayor Sanjeev Sharma said the Municipal Corporation issues challans for illegally put up posters. Asked about the ones near the site, he said, “People put-up the posters on their own. The MC issues them challans.”

This is while advertisement contractors have maintained a distance from the Corporation’s advertisement tenders issued over three times in six months, all due to rampant practice of putting up advertisement posters illegally. Subsequently, the MC has had to reduce the base price of advertisement tenders twice already- from Rs 7.09 crore to Rs 6.3 crore and then halved to Rs 3.87.

MC Commissioner Poonamdeep Kaur also later stated that the MC issues challans to defaulters. She said, “We carried out a drive and removed illegal political flex last week. Only the religious ones were left due to the sentiments of residents.”

She confirmed that the illegal activity is also carried out by councillors and other political leaders.

Meanwhile, the Municipal Corporation, Patiala, is waiting for approval of newly reduced base price and location sites for an advertisement tender from the local government department. Commissioner Poonamdeep said the MC would carry out another drive to remove illegal posters and challan those putting them up.