How the new draft advertisement bylaws and nudge from the High Court are set to streamline hoardings in Bengaluru

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Advertisement hoardings that were banned for six years are all set to make a comeback in Bengaluru. The Urban Development Department (UDD) has issued a draft of the new Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) (Advertisement) Bylaws, 2024, recently, which allows hoardings across the city, but in a more regulated way.

Why were hoardings banned?

Though the city’s civic body had advertising bylaws earlier, where permission was required to put up outdoor advertising in the city, its enforcement was lax. Hearing a Public Interest Litigation on illegal hoardings in Bengaluru, the High Court of Karnataka set multiple deadlines for the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to remove illegal hoardings in 2017 and came down heavily on the civic body for its failures.

In November 2017, the then Chairman of BBMP Standing Committee on Taxation and Finance M.K. Gunashekhar conceded that the twin objectives of maintaining the aesthetics of the streets and revenue collection of ad bylaws were not being met. He had blamed the deemed permission provision in the bylaw where an application was deemed to be approved if it was not acted upon within 45 days, for mushrooming hoardings in the city. BBMP began the process of amending this particular provision in the Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act, 1976. 

However, the then State government went ahead and banned all hoardings in the city except in Public Private Partnerships like skywalks and toilets that were built by private firms in exchange for commercial ad space. BBMP Outdoor Advertisement and Public Message Bylaws, 2018, banned all other forms of commercial advertising in the city. 

What are the arguments for bring back ad hoardings? 

The ban on all commercial outdoor advertising in a metro city like Bengaluru was not viable, as it killed a big industry and deprived the city’s civic body of a good source of revenue. Many argued for advertising to be brought back in a regulated way. In January 2024, the High Court of Karnataka also refused to give directions for a blanket ban on hoardings in the city. 

Following this the state government has now notified the Draft Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) (Advertisement) Bylaws, 2024, which proposes to bring back outdoor advertising albeit in a very regulated manner. 

How are various concerns about ads addressed

The draft bylaws have addressed some of the main concerns about outdoor advertising in the city. For instance, it bans all forms of advertising on roads of width less than 60 feet, but for commercial and industrial hubs. It bans all advertising on trees, street lights and electric poles. The bylaws ban any advertising abutting public roads, 50 feet from a traffic signal on all arms of the signal, 50 metres from any place of worship etc. Even as it bans any video advertising, it imposes restrictions on neon lights as well.

The draft bylaws create an Advertisement Regulatory Committee, headed by Additional Chief Secretary, Urban Development Department, which will decide the larger ad policy in the city. Meanwhile, the Chief Civic Commissioner will decide the stretches of roads on which outdoor advertising will be allowed in the city. Advertising will be allowed only in these areas. Further, the draft bylaws explicitly ban any form of outdoor advertising around Vidhana Soudha, the administrative nerve centre of the State. 

“The BBMP shall divide the whole city into suitable stretches of roads, circles and areas.. and paid advertisements shall be permissible only in these areas..The right to do paid advertisements on these road stretches, circles and areas shall be given only to the licensed advertising agencies through an open auction/tender in accordance with the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement Act, 1999,” the draft bye-laws say.

The draft bylaws allow for advertisements to be put up at every 100 metres of these stretches of the roads so notified. It stipulates the size of the hoardings to a maximum of 40/20 feet on roads for every 100 metres stretch of the road (combining length along both sides of the road) and to a horizontal width of a maximum of 60 feet at circles. The entire process of tendering out advertisement rights will be online, the draft bylaws say. 

The draft bylaws for the first time, allows other agencies like Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL), Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) and other government agencies to rent out their spaces for advertising. This means that Metro and BMTC can now issue independent contracts for advertising on metro pillars, metro stations, bus stands, and other properties. 

In one of the prominent features of the new draft bylaws, all outdoor advertising have to carry a QR code, which upon being scanned should display the licensee details and any hoarding that doesn’t have a QR Code will be deemed unauthorised. 
| Photo Credit:
BHAGYA PRAKASH

How revenue generation is envisaged

The draft bylaws fixes a minimum ground rent in the range of ₹40 – ₹110/sqft of advertising based on the guidance value of the area, which can further go up in the auction/tender. This will be several times higher than what was prescribed earlier, before a ban on hoardings. While this auction/tender will only give the ad agency a right to advertise on this stretch, they need to broker deals with individual property owners, including government agencies to put up hoardings on them.

The civic body will also collect an advertisement fee from these properties, as an additional component of their property tax. This will only add to the expenses of advertisers. Outdoors’ Advertising Association, Bengaluru has taken serious objection to the high advertisement fees and said this will effectively make outdoor advertising unviable, if not reduced. 

How enforcement is going to work

The draft bylaws provide for stringent measures including not just removal of illegal hoardings, blacklisting such advertising agencies, booking criminal cases against them, but also levying heavy penalties on the owners of the properties on which such illegal hoardings are put up and the printers who print them. In one of the prominent features of the new draft bylaws, all outdoor advertising have to carry a QR code, which upon being scanned should display the licensee details and any hoarding that doesn’t have a QR Code will be deemed unauthorised. 

Even as the State government is yet to issue the final notification of the new advertising bylaws, the High Court of Karnataka has cracked the whip, pushing the civic body to act on illegal hoardings and outdoor advertising in the city. 

Nudge from High Court got system cracking

Following the collapse of a giant hoarding in Mumbai in March, 2024, that left 16 killed and over 75 injured, two such hoarding collapse incidents were reported in Bengaluru as well. The very next day after the Mumbai accident, the metal structure used to put up a hoarding collapsed in Whitefield, but none were injured. However, a 70-year-old man was injured and was treated in an Intensive Care Unit in Rajanukunte on the outskirts of the city in the first week of July, when a hoarding collapsed on him. His grand-daughter had a miraculous escape. 

Following this accident, on July 12, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice N.V. Anjaria and Justice K.V. Aravind took suo motu cognisance of the accident based on a newspaper report. Observing that the authorities had not cared to implement the court’s orders to prevent unauthorised hoardings, the High Court of Karnataka initiated contempt proceedings against the Chief Commissioner of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike and the City Police Commissioner. The court said the accident depicts “a sorry state of affairs despite the court passing several orders to prevent the erection of hoardings illegally”, the Bench further said: “the unabated installation of illegal hoardings amounts to brazen violation of the orders passed by the court”. 

This nudge spurred the system into action. BBMP Chief Commissioner Tushar Giri Nath and City Police Commissioner B. Dayananda held multiple meetings and chalked out an action plan to crackdown on illegal hoardings in the city. The civic body has now dedicated a Prahari vehicle, for patrolling for each of the eight zones in the city. Civic officials will patrol their respective zones during night time to identify and remove illegal hoardings, in collaboration with the city police. Each police station in the city will appoint a nodal officer to identify, remove illegal hoardings and book FIRs against those who put them up. 

Meanwhile, the civic body has begun attempts to attack the supply side for illegal hoardings and outdoor advertising. Mr. Giri Nath has also issued an order that the printers of flex, banners and hoardings have to collect permission letters from BBMP from their clients for the outdoor media they print. This, the civic body hopes will make printing illegal ads difficult in the city. The civic body has warned that erring printers who fail to comply with this order will have their trade licences cancelled. 

Industry welcomes the direction of reforms 

Outdoor Advertising Association, Bengaluru has welcomed the direction of the reforms and regulations to the outdoor advertising industry in the city. “The general drift of the bylaws seems to be towards transparency. The process has been made online and it will be public. We hope this along with measures initiated by the civic body will streamline the industry. This can only mean good for legitimate players in the industry dominated by fly by night operators,” Manmohan Singh, Secretary of the Association. 

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