Patna: The issue of illegal hoardings defacing nooks and corners of the city has caught mayor Sita Sahu's attention.

She has sought a detailed report from municipal commissioner Abhishek Singh in three days on the number of hoardings registered agencies put up in Patna along with details of the revenue generated from them since 2005.

Sources in the civic body said though illegal hoardings accounted for losses of crores of rupees, there was not much attempt to dismantle them. Patna Municipal Corporation conducted few drives to remove illegal hoardings over the years. "We recently made a survey through which we have got to know about the existence of around 3,500 illegal hoardings in the city. We, however, assume there are 15,000 illegal hoardings," said Sahu. "Officially, around 48 registered agencies in Patna have put up between 1,200 and 1,500 hoardings legally. The rest are illegal."

Sahu said in a letter given to PMC commissioner she had sought details about the penalty that PMC imposed on advertising agencies in the past few days drive for erecting illegal hoardings apart from what happened to the frames and iron rods that PMC officials recovered while removing illegal hoardings.

"How much time-frame was given to the agencies for removing the illegal hoardings and what steps have so far been taken by the corporation to make up for the revenue losses? These information have also been asked," added Sahu.