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Year on, Zirakpur municipal council fails to float tenders for advertisements
As per the new Punjab Outdoor Policy, 2018, every corporation and council has been directed to publish new tenders to generate revenue from advertisements.
Even after a gap of one year, the municipal council of Zirakpur has failed to float a cluster tender for display of advertisements on unipoles and other outdoor advertisement media. Moreover, no effective drive has been conducted to remove the illegal hoardings erected along the highway in the past two years.
Though the civic council’s executive officer, Sandeep Tiwari, had assured in September this year that the tenders would be floated by October 29, nothing has been done yet.
The contract of the Chandigarh-based agency was allotted the tender in 2016 for a period of three years at a cost of ₹2.06 crore, which expired in September 2019. The council had, however, extended it till June 30, 2020, and again by four weeks.
Punjab local bodies director Puneet Goyal said he would look into the matter on Monday.
However, executive officer Tiwari did not respond despite repeated attempts.
As per the new Punjab Outdoor Policy, 2018, every corporation and council has been directed to publish new tenders to generate revenue from advertisements.
There are several illegal hoardings erected on the highway, but no effective drive has been conducted for the last two years. In 1995, the Punjab and Haryana high court had issued directions to all deputy commissioners to have illegal hoardings on national as well as state highways removed, saying that not only were they eyesores, they also diverted the attention of motorists leading to fatal accidents. Since then, the court has issued several reminders in this regard, but no action has been taken by the authorities concerned.
