Political hoardings put up ahead of meetings or rallies across the city are not removed for weeks and months after the meetings are held.
Neither the political parties nor the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC), the custodian of the city’s roads and footpaths, remove them. The hoardings make the streets uglier and pose a risk to pedestrians.
Sometimes they are even put up in front of houses and not removed despite repeated pleas.
A 72-year-old woman from Hatibagan has lodged a complaint with mayor Firhad Hakim about one such hoarding outside her home.
Mila Mukherjee called up Hakim in July during the weekly phone-in programme Talk to Mayor and told him the hoarding — a call to attend Trinamul’s July 21 rally — had been put up outside her home.
Hakim promised to have it removed. But it stayed.
“I called the mayor two more times in August,” Mukherjee told The Telegraph on Monday. “He promised me that the hoarding would be removed. I do not know why they put up the hoarding outside my house. It is close to one of the doors to the house,” she said.
On one occasion, Hakim had wondered aloud why the hoarding was not removed despite his office telling police to do so. This newspaper was present at the dial-in programme when Hakim answered the call.
On Monday, the mayor told this newspaper that he will visit the spot. “I will go there and remove the poster,” he said.
An officer at Shyampukur police station said during the day the banner was in no way blocking Mukherjee’s entry or exit. “We have seen the banner. It is far from the house,” said the officer.
It is not about blocking the entry or exit, Mukherjee said. She fears that a frame made of bamboo that was put up within 2ft of her home would become a permanent structure there. It was first put up before Holi. The July 21 rally hoarding was attached to it later.
“I fear this will become a permanent feature outside my house and the banner will keep changing depending on the occasion,” she said.
She has not lost hope. “I still believe that the mayor will keep his promise,” she said.
Hakim may have told the police to clear the hoarding, but civic officials said the CMC itself was responsible for removing any hoarding put up illegally anywhere in the city.
Across the city, there are innumerable banners and hoardings, both political and non-political, hanging from railings on footpaths or from electrical poles or tree trunks. In some places, wooden frames have been erected illegally to put up banners.
A CMC official said no official wants to take the risk of removing any poster of a heavyweight political leader. “The hoardings are removed mostly when there is an order from the top, that, too, when many hoardings have come up in an area,” said the official.
