Editorial
Billboards all over
Contain the rash
Rajdhani Unnayan Kartipakhya (Rajuk) last week knocked down over 12 billboards of illegal private housing projects in the city. While the step is appreciated, Rajuk has a long way to go to sustain the campaign and make a marked difference in the billboard-scape.
Hoardings set up haphazardly all over the place are first and foremost an eyesore. Secondly, they are a veritable danger to the passers-by and also vehicles.
A country that prides itself on its greenery and beauty loses out in argument when the cities are rife with jarring billboards. We project our country to the rest of the world as beautiful and friendly and yet the very cities that the visitors land in have a skyline that is dotted with rectangular scraps. Crores have been spent on city roundabouts; there are many elaborate sculptures like that in Kawran Bazaar of Dhaka, yet our eyes are assailed by those contraptions that ask you to simply buy something. It is an insult to our aesthetic consciousness indeed.
There have been countless instances of billboards not standing up to the elements. Lives have been lost due to advertisements that come plummeting down. People walk under signs stuck to walls that usually have not been strength-tested. Some are placed precariously on the edges of old building and markets.
Illegal billboards also fuel illegal trade. They are encroaching on public space whether it is a footpath, the side of a building or even up in the air. We live in consumerist times, yet we miss out on the very fundamental consumer right, that of a skyline free of obstructions. While this may seem trivial at a time when medical malpractices, political strife and price escalation run rampant, it is one of those little things that can make or break a day.
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