Regulate Advertisements At Bus Shelters

A bus shelter on Huzur Road in the city with no display of bus routes. If hoardings along roads should be removed on the grounds that they distract vehicle users, advertisements at bus shelters in the Coimbatore Corporation limits are equally capable of causing accidents, says Coimbatore Consumer Cause. Referring to a court order that the hoardings can be removed, secretary of the organisation K. Kathirmathiyon says that the bus shelters have more of advertisements and have very little space for displaying the route numbers of buses.

More than eight years ago, the Coimbatore Corporation decided to open up its bus shelters for privatised maintenance. The civic body said that companies could put up shelters with chairs for passengers to wait. They could also display their logos, but not in a manner that would encroach upon the mandatory space for public information. Rusted and damaged bus shelters had been replaced with well-lit, clean ones. “But, a lot of space has been taken away now by advertisements. This is in clear violation of the conditions on which the shelters have been allocated to the private parties,” contends Mr. Kathirmathiyon.

The consumer activist points out that Schedule 2 of the General Conditions says that on the basis of the no objection certificate obtained from the police, the Corporation can issue permission to sponsors to use only one-fifth of the space of the shelter for displaying their logo. The ninth condition also says that the sponsors “should not use the space for the projection of their products”. The special conditions say that no advertisement of any nature are to be permitted inside or on the outer side of the shelter. Only the name board or the display of the logo of the sponsor will be allowed and that too of a size decided by the Corporation Commissioner.

The top outer side of the shelter can have a board, of a size decided by the Commissioner, to display the route numbers and places for the information of the public. All these conditions have been violated, says Mr. Kathirmathiyon. Sign boards on all sides of the shelters display products, along with pictures of models posing with these. These are potentially distracting for the vehicles users on the busy roads of the city. Mr. Kathirmathiyon alleges that the Corporation has not enforced the rules and that is why the space meant for public information is not even as much as the one allocated for the sponsors’ logos. In some cases, there is no display of the bus route numbers. The shelters near the railway station will be useful to visitors to the city only if the routes are mentioned.

Otherwise, the purpose of this system is not served. “Numbers alone will not help, the name of at least the last stop should be mentioned on the shelter. When this issue was raised at the Transport Committee meeting recently, transport officials promised to action,” says Mr. Kathirmathiyon. In some shelters, the phone numbers of advertisement agencies have been displayed. This indicates that shelters are being sub-let and this is in violation of the conditions. Advertisers are using the shelters in the guise of sponsors, he alleges.

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