BENGALURU: While BBMP officials, on the directives of the High Court, are working at a feverish pace to remove illegal flexes, banners and hoardings, what appears to have been left out are the paper posters and flexes nailed to tree trunks.
Irate environmentalists are vehemently demanding their removal to protect the trees. Private parties consider this as a free-of-cost advertising platforms. A BBMP official said, “Nailing posters, flexes and pamphlets on trees is the cheapest way to advertise. Trees come under BBMP limits and we don’t charge a dime for these ads.
Some of the ads nailed to trees include - PG centres, PAN card makers, to-let boards, home food service, tuition classes for school and college students. Trees near bus shelters are more vulnerable as many think that it might catch the attention of the crowd waiting for buses. But, unlike flexes and banners, it is difficult to remove these as they are firmly nailed to the tree trunks.”
Environmentalist A N Yellappa Reddy said, “The inside of the tree trunks and stems act like veins in the human body, where water and nourishment is circulated within the tree. By nailing advertisements to the trunks, one is blocking the free flow of this nourishment for the trees and they suffer and die.”
BBMP officials and experts agree that such advertisement on trees contribute to degrading the city’s aesthetics. However, while the High Court direction on August 1 clearly stated that all illegal hoardings/ flexes/banners should be removed, the BBMP council on Monday resolved to ban all such menaces (legal or illegal) across the city ‘with immediate effect’.
The experts and the civic authorities now hope that the advertisements nailed to trees too would be stopped and violators will be severely penalised.
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