For the first time, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation
(GHMC) is planning to collect advertisement fees from private buses,
cabs, vans, autos and LMV vehicles for display of advertisements on
their vehicles from April this year.

GHMC would collect Rs 12,000
each from mobile buses, vans and light motor vehicles, Rs 6,000 each for
a cab and Rs 1,200 each from autorickshaws per annum.

Nearly 3
lakh vehicles will come into advertisement fee net and the corporation
would earn revenues to the tune of Rs 25-30 crore annually from vehicle
display advertisements. In GHMC limits, there are about 25,000 cabs,
1.45 lakh autos, 3,800 RTC buses, 3,000 private buses, and 15,000 buses
belonging to educational institutions.

After the
operationalisation of international airport at Shamshabad, several cabs
and buses are displaying advertisements on which no advertisement fee
was being charged by the corporation and it has decided to include in
the schedule of rates.

With Metro Rail Corridors, PVNR Expressway,
and Outer Ring Road (ORR) becoming high potential for advertisements,
the GHMC has identified them as special category ‘S’ and going to levy
hefty advertisement fee on the said stretches. All national and state
highways within the GHMC limits are now classified as category ‘A’ 
where high advertisement fee will be levied on the basis of per square
metre.

Also the GHMC has revised the advertisement fee on
hoardings, bus shelters, foot-over- bridges and bus shelters by doubling
them from the coming financial year. The GHMC Standing Committee which
met on Thursday had approved the said proposals, GHMC officials told
Express.

GHMC has decided to do away with the collection of
advertisement fee on installment basis from the next financial year. The
agencies who erected the hoardings have to pay 100 per cent
advertisement fee in advance during March every year for the succeeding
financial year instead of existing practice of collecting in four
installments i.e, 40 per cent in March, 20 per cent each in May, June
and July.

Further, GHMC will impose penalty if advertisement fee
is not paid in March and  those who come for renewal, a penalty of 10
per cent would be levied in April, May (20 per cent), June (30 per cent)
and if the boards were not renewed with penalty by June end, the same
may be cancelled duly collecting the dues. GHMC has proposed to have a
uniform rate for both lit and non-lit categories in view of the
practical difficulties in assessing the advertisement fee, GHMC
officials added.