Hyderabad: Pista House display lighting attracts penalty

Shalibanda : The GHMC on Tuesday fined a famous eatery in the Old City for using LED display boards against the existing norms.

According to officials, the Enforcement Vigilance and Disaster Management (EVDM) wing Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is coming hard on commercial establishments using LED lights on display boards. To attract customers, commercial establishments set up flashing LED display boards.

This time GHMC has fined Rs 50,000 on the hotel Pista House located in Shalibanda in Old City.

For use of flashing lights or non-static illumination in advertisements, the offence is compounded with an amount of Rs 50,000. Use of illuminated advertisements with brightness more than the allowed limit is an offence under the sections of GHMC Act.

The State government instructed the GHMC to reduce visual pollution and give utmost priority to safety of motorists and pedestrians.

As per Sections 420 and 421 of the Hyderabad Municipality Act (HMC) Act, 1955, sky-signs and advertisements with electric displays cannot be displayed, retained, or fixed without permission.

As per the advertisement policy, the owner needs to get written permission from the competent authority for erecting advertisement element using flashing lights or non-static illumination in the advertisements/ size of the advertisement or name board exceeding 15 per cent of the frontage of the building, use of moving, rotating or variable message advertising devices / operating an advertisement element without valid structural stability certificate/ advertisement on moving vehicle where the advertisement is placed in a manner of any additional board.