A hoarding on National Highway-5 near Acharya Vihar Square. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Jan. 11: Continuing its action against illegal hoardings in the city, the enforcement squad of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and officials of the tax and licensing wing today dismantled three big hoardings along the NH-5 area near Acharya Vihar Square.

The three hoardings, which stood in the area between a foreign liquor shop and Ayush Hospital, were of the sizes 1,200, 450 and 400 square feet, respectively.

But strangely there was no logo on a single hoarding to identify the owners.

The dismantling operation, which started at around 10.30am, continued till evening. The BMC demolition squad consisted of 20 members, including some senior officials. A tipper-load of hoarding material was recovered from the operation.

“In the morning, there was a phone call from an individual who said that the hoarding materials will be collected by them. But in principle we cannot allow the illegal hoarding owners to take back their belongings. We are also putting a lot of effort in dismantling them, and an entire team with gas cutters are used for this. After the operation, the iron frames were recovered from the site and taken to BMC yard. They will be auctioned later,’’ said Rina Mohapatra, in-charge of tax and licensing wing in the corporation.

As per a survey conducted by the licensing section of the civic authority, there are 32 big illegal hoardings in the city. The BMC has been organising a sustained campaign to dismantle them. After a series of steps in December, two campaigns were also organised in the first week of this month.

On Saturday, two hoardings measuring 800 square feet each were dismantled near Damana Sqaure near Chandrasekahrpur.

“The two hoardings belonged to a particular advertising firm. Despite the February 12, 2010 notification about illegal hoardings and mandatory use of logos on them to identify ownership, the hoardings were raised. Even in this case the advertiser approached us to take their belongings back, but they were collected by our squad,’’ said the official.

Another BMC official added that a huge hoarding of 1,500 square feet was dismantled a week ago near Delta Square. The hoarding was without any logo of the advertiser.

“In fact, the BMC authorities are planning to blacklist the advertisers who are violating BMC guidelines on hoardings,” said BMC tax and licensing official Rina Mohapatra.