Dismantling of illegal billboards begins

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The Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) has taken an initiative to remove all illegal billboards especially those on top of buildings and the ones that are hazardous to city dwellers.

A mobile team of the DCC removed around 15 billboards from Kakrail on Thursday night, DCC sources said.

The DCC already formed a committee that would ascertain the number and locations of the risky billboards.

The move was taken when a number of billboards collapsed following storms. Last year, a security guard of a CNG filling station at the Pragati Sarani was killed when a billboard collapsed on the station during a storm. It also damaged a number of cars parked at the station.

The DCC held meetings with advertisement firms and directed them to remove their unapproved billboards and hoardings.

“We approved a few billboards on top of buildings but now many ad firms have installed them without permission. The government is not getting any revenue and the billboards are posing hazard to city dwellers, so we took the initiative to remove them,” said MR Chowdhury, conservancy officer of the DCC.

“They seemed reluctant to comply. So we took the initiative to remove them,” he added.

The DCC authorities had a joint meeting with Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) where they asked Rajuk if they had the load-bearing test done on billboards on top of buildings. Rajuk authorities said they did not approve any firm for installing any such billboards, the DCC sources said.

However, the DCC earlier took steps to remove illegal billboards after newspapers ran reports alleging the DCC of facilitating a firm owned by Arafat Rahman, son of former prime minister Khaleda Zia, to set up illegal billboards.

Arafat’s advertising firm Advance AD allegedly wiped out its competitors from the market. It has had the control of the most lucrative advertisement spots in the capital during the last five years.

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