NHA Unmoved Against Use Of Illegal Outdoor Advertisements On Its Property.

ISLAMABAD -- The field formations of the National Highway Authority are unmoved against illegal outdoor advertisements of different private ventures displayed on its property in violation of the directions issued by the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

The apex court in its judgment passed in 2016 said, 'We are of the considered view that no billboard or hoarding can be permitted to be installed on any public property as defined in the preceding paragraph by any authority under the garb of by-laws which militate [against] the civil rights of the public at large.'

Resultantly, authorities concerned swung into action across the country and removed hundreds of billboards, hoardings and bridge panels and also refused to give any such permission in future.

However, the public property that came under the jurisdiction of NHA is being openly utilised for aforementioned purposes in violation of the Supreme Court orders but surprisingly the field formations are completely silent over the misuse of their right of way.

At present, at least four pedestrian bridges between Defence Chook to T-Chowk Rawalpindi are being used by different agencies for commercial advertisements. For instance an advertisement of a project Ramada Hotel is displayed on a bridge located right in front of Al-Shifa Eye Hospital, a promotional advertisement of Garana and two such advertisements of Agency-21 are displayed on bridges located next to the Soan Bridge.

Streetlight polls of NHA are also being utilised to place streamers by different private ventures purely on commercial bases.

As for instance, the streamers of a project named IMARAT are displayed on steel frames from Soan Bridge to Bahria Town's gate while several streamers were also placed on main G T Road by Al-Jannat Mall in front of its building.

The officers concerned at NHA Headquarters have confirmed to this scribe that no permission for advertisement on public property has been granted to anyone by the Right of Way Section, a department responsible to regulate all such matters.

They said that the role of the headquarter is...