Editorial
Risks from illegal billboards
Rajuk failure is unpardonable
ILLEGAL hoardings and billboards atop buildings and on roads in the capital remain a clear danger to citizens. The danger rises now that the season of storms is upon us. The first manifestation of it came last Wednesday when a huge billboard collapsed at Mirpur Road during a storm. While storms are a regular climatic happening in Bangladesh, what should not be regular is a deliberate flouting of judicial pronouncements on such matters as a removal of unauthorized billboards. Despite a specific High Court order on Rajuk in April last year that all such hoardings and billboards be removed, hardly anything has been done to comply with the order. The chairman of Rajuk now informs us that a lack of manpower has prevented an implementation of the HC directive. That begs the question: how is it that in an entire year Rajuk has not had the capacity to remove the billboards? Besides, why has it not come forth with any explanations about its failure until now?
It is extremely unfortunate that despite specific judicial directives, Rajuk has not moved towards pulling down the illegal billboards. It should have been its responsibility, when the HC revoked a stay order on the removal of the billboards in April 2010, to take swift action against those behind the erection of the billboards. That it did not has not only demonstrated a huge degree of callousness on its part but also, and more importantly, meant a heightened level of danger to citizens. The point here is not just that there is a risk to people from billboards during a storm. It is also the dark possibility of these billboards falling on the roads and on passersby at any given moment. That said, there is the obvious wrong the firms whose billboards have been put up have committed by not taking such factors into consideration. Where the standard rule around the world is for such hoardings to be placed at points where people are not vulnerable, it is highly mystifying that in Bangladesh no such precautions are taken.
We demand that Rajuk get moving by removing the billboards immediately. We also ask that the firms behind the billboards be roped into the job. They must not escape their responsibility.
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