BBMP officials were in a frenzy on Wednesday after High Court Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari gave them four hours to rid the city of illegal flex and banners.
This galvanised the BBMP with Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad sending a message instructing the civic workforce to drop whatever they were doing and focus on removal of illegal banners. Later in the day, Mr. Prasad claimed that over 5,000 illegal flex/banners had been removed by 2 p.m. “The special drive to remove all illegal flex and banners will continue. We will free the city of all illegal advertisements by Thursday.”
However, residents were sceptical. Those from outer zones reported no change in their neighbourhoods.
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“If the BBMP can remove 5,000 banners in four hours, why did they not do it before?” said Mahalakshmi Parthasarathy, secretary, Citizen Action Forum.
Defending its enforcement record, the BBMP claimed to have removed over 94,000 illegal flex and banners in the city from 2014-15 to date.