Ad hoardings to make a comeback, BBMP expects to earn nearly ₹500 crore additional revenue this year
The State government on Thursday issued the final notification of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (Advertisement) Bylaws - 2024, a new ad policy pending for years. The Draft of the bylaws was issued in July 2024, and a final notification has been issued with a few changes, incorporating objections that came for the draft.
For instance, the draft bylaws listed road widths in feet, while the final notification lists it in metres. The draft said no advertisement, apart from self-advertisement, will be allowed on a road less than 60 ft wide. The advertisement fee was in the range of ₹40 and ₹110, which has now been revised to in the range of ₹50 and ₹90. The total horizontal length of hoardings at a circle has been revised from 60 ft to 120 ft, and the maximum height of a hoarding from the ground has been raised from 75 ft to 30 metres (over 98 ft).
With the new ad policy coming into force, the stage is now set for the civic body to give out rights to put up advertisements in the city through an open auction/tender. Before that, the BBMP should divide the whole city into suitable stretches of roads, circles, and areas, where paid advertisements shall be permissible through a notification.
Chief Civic Commissioner M. Maheshwar Rao said the civic body estimates to mop up additional revenue of about ₹400 to ₹500 crore through outdoor advertisement. The civic budget for 2025-26 estimates ₹750 crore revenue from the advertisement fee (as per new policy).
However, the notification of road stretches, circles where advertisements will be allowed, and auction for advertising rights of the same will take time and this year, the revenue from this source will likely be lesser than what was estimated in the budget, sources said.
The new advertisement bylaws for the first time allows advertising on private lands, lands owned by other agencies like Indian Railways, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) or bus stands of the KSRTC, and the BMTC, and public sector units. The revenue will be shared with the BBMP, the sources said.
While the BBMP will auction advertising rights on road stretches, advertisers need to broker deals with individual property owners, including government agencies, to put up hoardings on them, and these property owners will have to pay additional property tax over the same.
Restrictions
The bylaws imposes several restrictions on outdoor advertising. For instance, it bans video advertising, imposes restrictions on neon lights, bans any advertising on trees, streetlights, electricity poles, on footpaths, abutting public roads, 50 ft from a traffic signal on all arms of the signal, 50 metres from any place of worship, etc.
The bylaws also constitute an Advertisement Regulatory Committee headed by the Additional Chief Secretary of the Urban Development Department. The bylaws brings in several reforms, including making the entire process online. Each outdoor advertisement will have to carry a QR code which when scanned should provide all details of the advertisement and any violation will make it liable to be removed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New Indian Express
2 hours ago
- New Indian Express
BBMP split will lead to skewed development
BENGALURU: While the Urban Development Department has issued the draft notification to split Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) into five corporations, civic experts and former corporators opine that the division was 'unnecessary' and has been done in a way that the city will see skewed development, and claim that the split didn't focus on language and culture. They note that Bengaluru East Corporation is carved out in a way that the area has the highest revenue collection, while other corporations are nowhere near. The area is predominantly populated by non-Kannadigas, who they believe will not understand local Kannada and culture. Founder member of Bengaluru Praja Vedike NS Mukunda said, 'The split has only laid the foundation for more problems. Instead of splitting the city into five corporations, the existing eight BBMP zones should have been doubled to 16, with a commissioner heading each zone. This would have made the administration easier.' Bengaluru East, being the highest revenue generator, will plan and implement multiple projects and schemes, and corporations like West will barely be able to run the show, Mukunda said. Echoing Mukunda's views was former Leader of Opposition in BBMP and BJP leader NR Ramesh, who said, 'East's revenue will be over Rs 2,000 crore, while Central's will be over Rs 250 crore, West will end up last with Rs 200 crore. North's revenue will be over Rs 1,400 crore and South's revenue around Rs 600 crore.' Ramesh predicted that if this split becomes a reality, Bengaluru will face Delhi's fate, where the national capital was trifurcated in 2012 and couldn't sustain due to multiple problems, and was again merged into one in 2022.
New Indian Express
2 hours ago
- New Indian Express
Bus lanes, Metro work in Bengaluru need urgent push: Experts
BENGALURU: Amid the political back-and-forth over which infrastructure project deserves priority, mobility experts have called on the state government to refocus on public transport, especially Metro expansion, bus services and pedestrian infrastructure to meaningfully address Bengaluru's traffic crisis. Sanjeev Dyamannavar, mobility expert, highlighted the long delays in construction of underground Metro corridors to caution against overly ambitious tunnelling projects. He said, 'Phase 2 of the Metro was sanctioned in 2014. Now we're in 2025 and the Kalena Agrahara to Nagawara stretch, mostly underground, still hasn't opened. You can imagine the challenges of tunnelling in Bengaluru.' He also stressed the unfulfilled promise of the Bengaluru Suburban Rail project. 'One of its outcomes was meant to be the removal of all level crossings in the city to reduce congestion. That hasn't happened. Our elected representatives and administrators are not treating this project with urgency. There's no review, no pressure, no push.' Civic evangelist V Ravichandar joined Dyamannavar in flagging the poor state of road and drain infrastructure. 'BBMP must take up proper maintenance of stormwater drains and ensure desilted mud is not left on the roadside. It just washes back in.' He added that carpooling and cab sharing should be promoted to reduce the volume of vehicles on roads. 'The most important projects we should prioritise are public transport and this includes Metro, suburban rail, bus, walkability and cycling infrastructure. Given that the biggest challenge for Bengaluru is outer ring road and that the Blue Line Metro is still under construction, the single biggest intervention that can yield quick results is revival of the bus priority lane on ORR, which was suspended due to Metro construction,' said Srinivas Alavilli, fellow at World Resources Institute India. With the city's vehicle population nearing 1.3 crore, experts said without immediate and sustained investment in public transport infrastructure, the city's mobility crisis will deepen. Bridging the gap between rapid urban expansion and accessible, efficient transport systems is no longer optional, it is essential for the city's sustainability and quality of life.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
4 hours ago
- Business Standard
India's demographic edge at risk as jobseekers are short on key skills
India's destiny for centuries to come will be determined by the young people joining its workforce today. A few years ago — in 2019, by some calculations — the country entered the most favourable stage of its demographic transition. There are more working-age people than those over 65 or under 16. This will be true for another three or so decades; if India doesn't grow rich in that period, then the chances are it will stay poor forever. That's a great responsibility for this generation — and one it can only fulfill if it the right jobs are available, allowing them to increase their productivity and grow incomes. But those don't seem to exist. India's growth numbers may appear comfortable, but that isn't being accompanied by an expansion of employment. There are no reliable statistics on joblessness rates — and these are deceptive in poorer countries anyway. But scenes like those in 2022, when 12.5 million candidates applied for 35,000 junior positions in Indian Railways and then rioted over the selection process illustrate the scale of the challenge. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government knows that this is a problem. Which is why this month his cabinet agreed to begin a new 'employment-linked incentive' programme for companies. Federal finances will pay a month's worth of social security, and give employers ₹3,000 (about $35) every month for every new employee they hire. This subsidy will last for two years — or four, if the company in question is in the manufacturing sector, which is a state favourite. These aren't big numbers, but the government nevertheless insists the handouts will create millions of new jobs. I'm a bit more skeptical. It may result in some jobs that wouldn't otherwise exist, but this sort of program assumes the main constraint that potential hirers have to deal with is their wage bill. That doesn't seem to be the case. More often than not, what employers complain about is that there are too few people to hire. That's an odd thing to hear in the world's most-populous country. What that statement actually means is that companies can't find enough reliable, skilled workers to fill entry- or middle-level positions. This is particularly true in the manufacturing sector that the government is so determined to support. The problem isn't that Indian workers are $35 a month too expensive; the problem is that there are too few of them with the talents that employers want. That's what Modi needs to address. One major problem is the educational system. Primary schooling is particularly bad. It may already be too late for the generation currently entering the workforce, but fixing schools should be a priority anyway. The most reliable school survey has found that only one of every four third-graders can do simple tasks, like subtraction, that they should have learned in second grade. The gap between curriculum and achievement widens as they head into high school. If a large part of the workforce struggles with basic numeracy, then it might be too much to expect them to be hired for skilled manufacturing jobs. If formal education isn't working well, then India's network of vocational and technical schools should have picked up the slack. Unfortunately, those are even worse. The skills they teach are out of touch with the private sector's needs. Most don't even have active placement cells to connect their graduates with possible employers. According to the government's official think tank, less than 0.1 per cent of the hundreds of thousands trained in Industrial Training Institutes were recorded as being placed in a company. But Indians have learned to live with public-sector dysfunction. Why don't they acquire the skills that would get them a private-sector job without the government's help? Partly because they don't see how it would make economic sense. The compressed wage structure means that the returns to education and skilling are far too low. That's really clear if you read the large-scale wage survey that the labour bureau conducts every few years. In the last iteration, it found that a skilled machinist in the automotive sector makes barely 20-25 per cent more than an unskilled manual labourer in the same factory. That's not really enough of an incentive for most people to spend their time and money on vocational school. Perhaps young Indians might be more willing to take a few risks if the jobs they got later felt a bit more secure. They certainly try exceptionally hard for the few government or public-sector positions that are available. But those come with more job security, as well as health and other benefits. India's minimal social safety net means that private-sector employment doesn't pay enough to make up for how insecure they are. There's a lot else the government can and should be doing if it wants more people to be hired. It needs to provide the sort of safety net that encourages them to take the risk of investing in their own human capital. It needs to fix schooling, and make sure the next generation of workers are literate and numerate enough to learn quickly on the job. And it must find new ways of getting skills to the workforce — perhaps using digital methods. Giving companies a dollar or so a day is simply not enough to create the scale of employment that India needs to grow.
