The crash of three structurally-weak hoardings in different parts of
the  Twin Cities during Wednesday’s rain is just the proverbial tip of
the iceberg.

There are several such hoardings in the Greater
Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits which may collapse any
time if one or two heavy spells of rain occurs again.

As per the
officials records of the GHMC, there are about 600 hoardings in its
limits unauthorisedly erected by the advertising agencies and others and
let out to commercial establishment at huge monthly rents.
Unofficially, there are another 500 hoardings in the GHMC limits which
do not have Advertisement Identification Number (AIN).

Meanwhile,
GHMC commissioner MT Krishna Babu has directed all the 2,684 hoardings
owners/agencies under the GHMC limits to submit their structural designs
along with the structural stability certificates within seven days.

The
commissioner, who held a review meeting with GHMC officials in the wake
of Wednesday’s hoarding crashes, said that GHMC would get the details
furnished by the agencies cross-checked by independent agencies such as
JNTU and Osmania University and draw conclusions regarding the stability
of the hoardings.

The commissioner directed the deputy
commissioners of circles 8 and 9 to issue  notices to Prakash Arts
agency and Venkateswara Advertisement agency, whose two hoardings in the
Nizam College grounds  and one hoarding in Himayatnagar respectively
collapsed on Wednesday. Similar, notices are to be issued to structural
engineering firms M/s Becon Consultancy and M/s Builders & Planners.

The
show-cause notices would seek to know why the agencies should not be
black-listed  and why criminal action should not be taken against the
structural engineers for issuing false stability certificates for the
collapsed hoardings.

Babu also said that GHMC would not allow
hoardings removed in the path of the Hyderabad Metro Rail to be
re-erected anywhere else in the city.

The commissioner said that
he would hold a review meeting on June 3 with the municipal standing
counsel to discuss the court cases pertaining to the advertisement wing.

Earlier,
the structural stability of hoardings was to be certified by the GHMC
engineering wing but for reasons best known to the GHMC senior
officials, this has been done away with in the last few years. Now based
on the certificate given by the licensed structural engineers, the GHMC
estate wing is renewing licenses as well as giving fresh permissions
for erecting new hoardings.

As per the statistics of the GHMC, as
many as 599 hoardings have been erected illegally in 18 circles. About
2,684 hoardings have been permitted in the GHMC limits at various
locations.

However, the officials claim that they removed 468
illegal hoardings in 2011-12. An additional 131 hoardings are yet to be
removed – 19 of them in the East Zone, 57  in the West Zone, 27 in the
North Zone and 14 each in the South and Central zones respectively.

Though
the GHMC expected to earn a revenue  Rs 50 cr from the advertisements,
it could earn a mere Rs 23.88 crore in 2011-12. Of that, the income from
hoardings was only  Rs 14.65 cr.

These figures were given to the general body held on December 15 last year.