BHUBANESWAR: With illegal hoarding and advertisements emerging a big menace in the capital city, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) is working on developing a GIS-based integrated portal and mobile application to regulate display of advertisements effectively and increase revenue generation.
Accordingly, the corporation has sought request for proposal (RFP) from stakeholders to finalise the agency and handover the task of developing the software for the same.Officials said the civic body intends to digitise the records of outdoor media advertisement such as hoardings, bulletins, kiosks, LED display etc displayed on both government and private lands and buildings by the advertisers.
While BMC selects agencies and advertisers to display outdoor media advertisement such as hoardings, bulletins, kiosks, LED display through a competitive bidding process, it collects annual license fee as stipulated in tax on advertisement regulation, 2012 from the agencies and stakeholders concerned for display of advertisements in private lands and buildings.
Officials, however, said digitisation and automation of activities with the help of the software to be called ‘Integrated Web, GIS and Android based Solution for Management of Hoarding’ will help in checking such illegal installations and collection of advertisement fees from the agencies effectively.
“The application will help in establishing a strong visual link between the location of a hoarding onto the GIS platform and its corresponding data would provide a spatial dimension to the hoarding management,” said an official.
The android app will also help field staff in sharing details of the advertisements with photos and locations more easily to the officials of the BMC for better management of the hoardings.This, he said, will also help in intensifying enforcement against violators. BMC has invited RFP for development of the application by January 20.