New Delhi: The National Highways Authority of
India (NHAI) will erect about 1,500 billboards with pictures
of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia
Gandhi every 25 kilometres on the national highways.
A circular has been issued to all its Project Directors
regarding provision of display boards at 25 km interval on
both sides alternatively in English, Hindi and the local
language.
In response to an RTI query, the NHAI said out of the
total of 1,488 such billboards, a maximum of 282 will be on
national highways in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand and
Jharkhand, 249 in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana and 214 in
Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
A total of 170 display boards are planned in Andhra
Pradesh, 126 in Maharashtra and Goa, 120 in Delhi, Madhya
Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, 108 in West Bengal and Orissa and 91
in Karnataka and Kerala.
While 70 billboards are proposed to be put in Punjab,
Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and 58 in Assam and other
North-east States.
The display boards are to be provided at the cost of the
contractor or concessionaire and NHAI will not incur any
expenditure on this account, the reply said.
According to NHAI, the board of size 20 ft (horizontal) x
10 feet (vertical) shall be fixed in row portion.
"Photo-publicity of political rulers and other living
personalities including through media-advertisements at
public-expense should be altogether banned to prevent misuse
of public-money for image-projection of leaders for political
purposes," RTI applicant Subhash Chandra Agarwal said in the
petition.
-PTI
First Published: Wednesday, January 06, 2010, 21:15