KARACHI, Dec 8: Speakers at a seminar on Saturday criticised the ‘visual pollution’ being created by outdoor advertisements and stressed that people-friendly laws be formulated and implemented across the board.

Speaking at the seminar titled ‘Hoardings/billboards — issues in policies and implementation’, organized by the Shehri NGO, they said the existing laws needed to be fine-tuned to provide some relief to the masses engulfed with advertisements, including those which were aesthetically ugly and also those not culturally compatible if not totally vulgar.

Pointing out that the many land-owing agencies in the city with their separate sets of rules created complications, they demanded that there should be one umbrella organization for the city and its rules should be followed by all organizations.

They also said that though the city government had detailed laws and policies, they were vulnerable to misinterpretation. The cantonment boards which controlled most of the city lands had only published a brief brochure with vague information on the issue providing ample space for manipulation. That probably was the reason that violations were rampant in those areas, they added.

NED University’s architecture department chief Dr Nauman Ahmad said those benign-looking billboards became death traps a few months back when many of them could not withstanding stormy winds and fell on and killed unsuspecting people.

He said that earlier the billboards used to be smaller and fewer in number, but over the years not only their numbers had multiplied, their sizes had also grown out of proportion. Being relatively less expensive, they had become popular with business houses, he added.

He said the trade was widely unregulated and the implementation of whatever laws were existing was far from ideal. Hence the quality of designing the material used was usually compromised and the public had seen its result with many deaths caused by falling billboards.

He stressed the role of professionals, professional bodies of architects, engineers and members of civil society in the policy-making and monitoring process. He also laid stress on transparency in the allotment of spaces.

Pakistan chief of Asia Sign Association Mohsin Durrani claimed that the city government had relevant laws which were implemented duly and the incident in which many billboards fell a few months back was due to unusually strong winds. A few billboards, unfortunately, killed a few people, he added.

He said the Hurricane Katrina had toppled over 4,500 billboards and killed over 450 people in the United States, but nobody made it an issue there, whereas everybody was targeting the outdoor advertising here. He said the criticism here was uncalled for.

Referring to a point raised earlier regarding usage of solar power so that people did not face load-shedding, he said that sometime back four solar panels were installed on a Sharea Faisal billboard and these were stolen within a few days. He said that only around one-third of the city land was controlled by the city government — which had better laws, policy and technical staff — while the rest was under other organizations’ control which neither had qualified staff nor updated laws.

He said that his association could not monitor its members for violating the laws which was the duty of the regulating government authorities. He said the KESC was intending to put a time restriction — up to 9pm or 10pm — after which the billboard illumination would be shut off.

He said that now some billboards with angular poles were being installed, which could be even more dangerous if not properly monitored. He said that many sites for billboards had been abolished and the taxes/rent of the sites had been increased and that up to Rs1,500 per square foot was being charged for some sties and in some cases a billboard which was available for Rs450,000 now cost around Rs1.4 million.

He also said he did not like it that stakeholders involved in the issue — from advertisers to the city government — were being termed a mafia by some of the speakers and said that he would get a legal opinion on it and might start legal proceedings against them.

Kamran Sani, Ahmed Kapadia and others also spoke at the seminar conducted by Farhan Anwer. City Nazim Mustafa Kamal did not turn up, while the cantonment boards or other land-owning agencies also did not send in their representatives at the seminar.