While welcoming the Supreme Court ruling and the consequent removal of billboards by the Tamil Nadu government in Chennai and Bengaluru, B Prasad, director of operations at Printech Digital Imaging said, “I call OOH the children of the lesser god because, unlike TV and print mediums, it doesn’t have great representation, although it has provided opportunity for employment and helped in consumption of produced goods. Employment is an extremely important factor for a country of this size.”

Prasad stated: “Nearly 100,000 families depend on the business from the Chennai hoarding industry. Aside from employment, a huge amount of money is at stake.”

On average, each hoarding is leased out for about 150,000 rupees ($A3600) a month. In addition to this the Tamil Nadu Government collects 3 rupees ($A0.07) per square foot every month as display tax from the 10 billion rupee ($A241m) industry in Chennai.

Prasad pointed out, “About 30% of Chennai’s hoardings are illegal and if they are cleared, followed by implementing a law and according to size guidelines, there would be no need for a blanket ban”.

Prasad said that when the Tamil Nadu government banned billboards, as a part of regularisation and city beautification initiative, the result was billboard workers were out of job. The Printech team at Chennai tried to encourage those who lost their jobs by introducing printed SAVs on walls with the help of 3M special films. But even these methods of modern wall coverings were noticed by the civic authorities who “verbally informed” the building owners not to bypass the rules.

Read the original article at www.printweek.com.

Comment below to have your say on this story.

If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at editorial@sprinter.com.au.  

Sign up to the Sprinter newsletter