Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) has, after a gap of nearly six months, started to tighten the noose around outdoor agency owners who have put up illegal hoardings across the city.

The civic body has identified at least 58 such agencies, which have set up over 4,000 billboards — both big and small — along almost all major thoroughfares of the state capital.

“We are sending notices to all the agencies and asking them to clear the payments within seven days. Else, their hoardings will be pulled down,” said Shailesh Kumar Diwakar, the officer on special duty to PMC commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pal.

In December last year, the civic body had launched a drive to demolish the unauthorised hoardings in the city. More than 100 such structures were pulled down then. A group of agency owners later filed a case against PMC in Patna High Court, which directed the civic body to stop its “coercive action” against the advertisers.

“In a judgment passed a few days ago, the court asked the PMC to go ahead with the action against the advertisers though it gave them some waiver in the penalty we were imposing on them. Therefore, we are starting the exercise afresh,” Diwakar said.

On the other hand, several outdoor agency owners said they were yet to receive notices from the PMC. “It is difficult to comment on the issue till we get any notice from them,” said Kumar Varesh, the owner of Popular, an ad agency.

In December last year, the civic body had set a seven-day deadline for the outdoor advertisement agencies to pay the outstanding. The PMC had then also threatened to remove the hoardings if they failed to pay the amount. But none of the agencies complied with the orders, following which the PMC formed a team of workers and started pulling down the billboards.

Sources in the PMC said the corporation’s own report on revenue collection showed that not a penny was earned through advertisement charges by outdoor ad agencies in the past five years.

PMC officials blamed the present situation on the advertising agencies and said it was planning a “crackdown” on the defaulting agencies.

Through the PMC audit it came to light that advertisement agencies, in connivance with some PMC officials, caused losses to the civic body worth Rs 10 crore.