Prior to the city’s municipal elections, illegal posters, banners, and hoarding started appearing all over the Capital. According to an official report, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) started removing these items on Saturday.
An official stated that they have removed more than 70,000 posters defacing public properties.
The election body said on Friday that the MCD elections will take place on December 4 and that the results would be tallied on December 7. The model code of conduct for the elections has been implemented, according to state election commissioner Vijay Dev, and candidate nominations will begin on Monday (November 7).
The Delhi Prevention of Defacement of Property Act, 2007, makes it illegal to deface public property by posting signs in undesignated locations, yet violations continue to be common even outside of election season.
With prospective candidates and ticket seekers from across political parties deploying illegal posters, banners and hoardings in an effort to increase their visibility in their respective wards, the MCD on Saturday said it has constituted 24 enforcement teams — two teams covering each of the 12 administrative zones under the civic body — which have been mandated to clear public places of all political posters, banners and hoardings.
On the first day of its drive, the MCD said in an official report that it had removed 70,741 such items — 51,167 illegal posters, 9,233 publicity boards, 6,183 hoardings and 4,158 banners.
The Central zone in East Delhi had the most defacements (13,385), followed by the Civil Lines zone (12,257), the West zone (10,365), and the Shahadra South zone (8,805).
An MCD official said provisions of the defacement Act can be used against violators, but the sheer scale of offences makes it impractical to go after individual defaulters, and pressure from all political parties makes it difficult to act against them. “Normally, we just remove these defacements. In case of private properties, a 72-hour notice is provided to take down the banners/hoardings,” the official said.