Edunology - Saumya Aggarwal

Political posters all over on roads: A nightmare

He counted numbers of political posters up on Mumbai streets while driving to work. In 1.9 kms of stretch, there were 106 posters!!! Now I tried to think who are putting up these posters and why:

1. Political Party workers : To gain political mileage
2. RWAs : To please political leaders and get their society cleaned up
3. Associations like Yuva Morcha : To enter into politics or showoff or become local group leader (good for nothing)

Implications:

1. Illegal hoardings as these are politically driven
2. Revenue loss for local municipal as lot of commercial ads could have been put. I happened to call an ad agency (name confidential) who told me:
Illegal ad rate: Rs. 5000 near signal of Andheri Naka per month (he said "sab setting ho jayegi", it means everything will be sorted with relevant authorities)
Legal ad rate: Rs. 10000 including for same site including undertable payment for clearance in few days
3. Lost cause: Nobody would be looking at them. Damn it, people are fed up.
4. City looks awful. It makes entire surronding look dull.

This is not only trend on Mumbai roads but across the country. I remember me and Paras were going to Ghaziabad, city in Uttar Pradesh adjacent to New Delhi and we came across poster of Ms. Mayavati on every single pole on streets.



What can be done:
1. Public awareness
2. Empowering local municipal to remove such hoardings and not to give up from political pressure
3. Mass rallies from people like us to destroy such posters
4. Ban people in politics whose illegal hoardings are up on streets

These are instances that make me feel that we are living in uneducated and unregulated society. Keep posting your comments on this issue.