KATHMANDU, Dec 21:  As a part of its ongoing efforts to make the city cleaner and better, the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has launched a fresh drive to remove ‘unauthorized’ sign boards from the metropolis area.

Senior officials at KMC said the metropolis authority is doing everything in its ‘powers’ to make the country’s federal capital city a better city for everyone. The metropolis has started removing the sign boards or notice boards that are hung against the rules, making city areas ugly.

The metropolis on Tuesday issued a public notice, asking all parties concerned to remove hoarding boards that exceed the size of 30 square feet within 15 days. The metropolis has also warned of recovering the cost of removing such hoarding boards or notice boards if they are not removed within the given deadline.  

The efforts of KMC to remove the unauthorized sign boards and hoarding boards is not new though. The fresh notice of KMC comes after its earlier notice to remove such objects within 35 days was flouted by the concerned parties.

It was some three years ago, a meeting between the stakeholders concerned headed by the then Minister for Home Affairs RamBahadur Thapa  had decided to remove hoarding boards, posters and messy wires dangling overhead in metropolis areas. The KMC has renewed the efforts to remove them as the efforts made by the erstwhile government and KMC authorities failed to achieve the goal.

KMC has removed the advertisement hoarding boards, wall writings, and posters on the walls in public places that have become an eyesore to the city dwellers. The KMC has maintained that the hoarding boards and posters have been placed without paying attention to safety concerns.

As much as they cause visual pollution to the city landscape, they jeopardize the safety of the people. According to Chief of Kathmandu Metropolitan City Police SP Raju Pandey, the hoarding boards have been removed from Bagbazar area of Kathmandu starting from Monday.

He said, "It has been almost a month since we started removing hoarding boards in the Kathmandu area. But we have started removing it from the Bagbazar area only since yesterday [Monday]. We are removing 50 to 60 hoarding boards a day. But there are hundreds of thousands of such boards in Kathmandu. So, we do not know exactly when we will be able to complete this task. But we will continue to work anyway.”

SP Pandey informed that hoarding boards have been removed from the Putalisadak area of Kathmandu and efforts are currently underway to remove them from Maharajganj, Kalimati, Baneshwar and Bagbazar areas.

 
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