The state government has approved the proposed advertisement policy for the city, mayor Firhad Hakim said on Friday.
In the new policy, one agency will be given advertisement rights for a particular road or street, he said.
A Kolkata Municipal Corporation official said the policy aims to reduce the number of hoardings by nearly half.
The policy will be published in the official gazette soon, KMC sources said.
“The state government has approved our advertisement policy. We will now hand over advertisement rights of a street to a single agency,” said Hakim.
In the current system, different agencies have advertisement rights on hoardings on one street. Under the new system, it will be easier for the authorities to monitor a single agency, said sources.
Hakim said: “The agency will not tolerate illegal hoardings on the street for its own benefit because it will mean a loss.... We will decide how many square feet a hoarding should be and the gap between two.”
Last month, Debashis Kumar, the mayoral council heading KMC’s advertisement department, told The Telegraph the civic body wants to gradually cut the number of hoardings from 400 to 250.
Fewer billboards will make the city look cleaner, and also help the civic body earn more revenue, Kumar had said.
The KMC had published draft regulations on outdoor advertisements in May 2022. The civic body sought and received suggestions for changes to the draft, some of which have been incorporated.
In March last year, Hakim had said he was unhappy with the draft and wanted the rules to be more “scientific”.
“I am not happy with the (draft) advertisement policy. I have suggested some changes,” he had said.
Following Hakim’s prod, the KMC made changes to the regulations.