GVMC to dismantle nine illegal unipoles

The Greater Vishakapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) has assured the High Court at Hyderabad on Tuesday that it would remove the nine illegally erected unipoles at traffic signal junctions within five days and report compliance.

The Standing Counsel for the GVMC Laxminarayana Reddy gave an undertaking to this effect before the division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice Shameem Akhter during the course of hearing of a writ appeal filed by Prakash Arts Pvt Ltd, advertising and billboard agency, against the interim order of a single judge permitting M/s Stanpower Pvt. Ltd to erect its hoardings as per the terms and conditions of the agreement.

The GVMC entered into an agreement with this agency to put in place 94 smart traffic signals at junctions on a Built Operate and Transfer basis and in return that agency has been given the liberty to sell advertising space at these junctions through billboards, unipoles and hoardings.

The Standing Counsel of GVMC informed the bench that this Agency had unauthorisedly erected 9 unipoles at traffic junctions and another 21 unipoles as per the terms of the contract. The GVMC had already removed the flexis erected on these 9 unipoles.

The bench was serious at the inaction of GVMC in removing the illegally erected nine unipoles. As it threatened to summon the higher-ups of GVMC to the court to explain this inaction, the standing counsel gave an undertaking that these structures would be removed within five days. Recording his undertaking the bench adjourned the matter to next Monday.