BENGALURU: With the festival season just round the corner, flexes and banners are most likely to resurface and keep the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) authorities on their toes.
The flexes and banners put up by politicians and their followers across the city have become an eyesore resulting in the High Court giving the civic body repeated deadlines to remove them. The court has again given the BBMP a new deadline of August 14.
Putting up hoardings is a common practice of wishing the public and the matter has gone from bad to worse.
"Sometimes many leaders from various parties often compete on who would have more flexes, and our officials dare not touch these. We are just hoping that with the court intervention, we might get some relief,'' a senior official told TNIE.
Many festivals and celebrations are upcoming like Independence Day, Varamahalakshmi, Gowri-Ganesha, Krishna Janmashtami and Bakrid. "Most of the time, our followers put flexes in our names along with our photos. We have appealed to them not to put up banners because of the High Court's direction,'' said a BJP councillor, who did not wish to be identified.
BBMP commissioner Manjunath Prasad said removal of flexes and banners is a "continuous process". "We have directed the officials to register FIRs as and when they identify flexes and banners, and remove them. Now, we have appealed to the public to call our control room if they find illegal banners,'' he said and assured people that if officials do not turn up in a day, action will be taken against them.
This Independence Day, Bengaluru may get freedom from flexes, banners
BBMP thinks hi-tech to keep illegal flexes off city limits
Bengaluru flex menace: Time to nail menace of ads on trees, say environmentalists
Bengaluru flex menace: Posters, banners thrive despite BBMP’s efforts
BBMP will report to Karnataka HC today, but flexes still dot Bengaluru