Kathmandu, February 27

More than four years after the Supreme Court issued an order to remove hoardings and signboards from city areas, Kathmandu Metropolitan City removed over 11,000 hoardings in the last two months.

The SC, on September 2015, had ordered the government to remove all kinds of illegal hoardings, signboards and other eyesores like posters and stickers that have been degrading city’s beautification.

The government had remained indifferent to the apex court’s order. The SC’s Judgment Execution Directorate had written five letters to government bodies to implement the court’s order.

Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration on 31 December 2019 had asked all local levels to implement the SC’s order. Following news reports carried by THT, KMC had started removing hoardings and signboards on March last year.

This time, KMC has adopted stringent measure to remove hoardings and signboards. It does not allow hotels, restaurants, groceries, offices or any corporate house to place even small signboards.

According to Deputy Superintendent of Police Dhanapati Sapkota, small signboards have been cluttering the city.“We found that removing hoardings alone was not enough to control visual pollution in the city. Promoters encouraged small shops in the city to place signboards.

Large space of such board was allocated for commercial products of the promoters with a tiny fraction displaying name of the concerned shop,” Sapkota said.

Promoters are also not allowed to place hoardings or signboards blocking windows and veranda of a building, on roof-top and on public or private land.

Sapkota also said Kathmandu Metropolitan City has removed over 84 hoardings from roof-tops and from verandas and there are around 10 more left to be removed.

KMC has launched discount offer to those who want to place digital signboards.

Digital signboards are comparatively smaller and do not clutter the city.

On December 26, last year, a meeting headed by Minister of Home Affairs Ram Bahadur Thapa in Singha Durbar had decided to remove different kinds of eyesores like hoardings, signboards, posters and messy wires dangling overhead in the capital city.

Kathmandu Metropolitan City had formed a task force to remove visual pollutants.

But, the task force is yet to remove cables dangling from utility poles, which are also a prime cause of visual pollution in the city.