HC orders removal of hoardings along state highway

Our Correspondent

Kangra, July 17

The Himachal Pradesh High Court today asked the state government to remove all hoardings put up along the state highway from Matour to Kangra bypass. The PWD officials removed more than one hundred hoardings, big and small, along the Kangra-Matour state highway in this temple town during a specific drive today.

In the coming days the hoarding would also be removed from the Chambi-Dharamshala and Ranital-Kotla state highways, the PWD authorities said.

PWD Kangra Division Executive Engineer Surinder Pal Jagota said the hoardings were today removed in this town and its outskirts following the directions from the high court. He said hoardings were removed from the electric and telecom poles besides shops along the state highway.

He said the NGOs should launch awareness campaign so that people did not indulge in violating the High Court direction and also putting the department with an additional burden of removing the hoardings.

He said the violators were warned of legal action if the hoarding were installed again. On March 22, the three state highways were made hoarding free but some big business houses, educational institutes besides hoardings of religious congregations were installed at different place on the Kangra-Matour state highway and all these were removed today, he said.

Besides workers, trucks and JCBs were used to remove hoardings. The removed hoardings were dumped in the divisional office here and would be disposed of soon.