Illuminated hoardings at a street junction in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 1: Glow signboards with high luminosity levels across various locations in the city are not just an eyesore but are also affecting pedestrian and vehicle movement.

Piyush Ranjan Rout, an urban management expert who loves cycling on the busy Janpath road, said: “The illuminated display board near Ram Mandir Square has crossed all limits. Placed on a market building developed by the Bhubaneswar Development Authority on the opposite side of the Janpath, it illuminates the entire area and is three times brighter than all the streetlights on the stretch taken together.”

He said though people are used to streetlights, neon and LED display boards projecting various brands have become a distraction while driving. “The level of illumination should be monitored by the municipal corporation. In the case of this hoarding opposite Ram Mandir, it seems the civic authorities have not exercised any control,” said Rout.

Rout, who frequently travels to foreign countries, said cities such as Singapore and Hong Kong were planning to discourage glow signboards as they caused visual pollution. “Our cities are now in transition. Now is the time to control this kind of thing or it will be too late.”

Visual pollution from glow signboards can also be seen at the Ashok Nagar-end of another major landmark in the city, Rajmahal Flyover, which was inaugurated on October 17.

Rakesh Mohanty, a businessman from Kharavela Nagar, said: “The glow signboards illuminate the flyover from one end so much that people going from AG Square to Kalpana Square are blinded by it and find it difficult to concentrate on the road. The streetlights on the flyover have not been fixed yet. Once they are, there will be far too much illumination on the road.”

An official of the BMC licence section, which administers hoardings across the city, said: “The authorities are yet to think about the total light output emitted by a light source. This is also called luminous flux in technical parlance.”

Rout said it was high time the civic authorities thought about the adverse impact of the bright lights on motorists and pedestrians. “They should regulate the luminous flux so that it is not more than the intensity of the streetlights,” he added.

Municipal commissioner Sanjib Kumar Mishra said the advertisers would be served a notice to tone down the luminous flux so that traffic was not affected.

The chief of the licensing section, Srimanta Mishra, said that apart from the civic body, traffic officials of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar police were also involved in granting permission to those wanting to put up glow signboards in the city.

Assistant commissioner of police (traffic), Binod Das said: “We will ask the advertisers to reduce the luminosity level of the signboards so that commuters are not affected. We request citizens to bring such things to our notice in future.”