Banners should not outlive their purpose

Pic/Satej Shinde

Festive season is upon us and we know this not only because of the calendar but also by the number of posters and cutouts of political leaders plastered all over the city.

Almost every major road as well as nooks and corners have banners and hoardings with politicians smiling benignly at harried citizens as they go about their daily routine.

This edit space has highlighted numerous times how these hoardings are simply designed to get attention, and how they are allowed to mushroom all over the city. Yet, if these are legal, we can only hope they are taken down once their time is up. They cannot be allowed to be above our heads right till the end of the year, or months on end.

All kinds of politicians, of different political parties are on these banners wishing people a ‘happy' this or that or whatever. Your people will just be happy with your work; we can do without these wishes. We can also do without dodging all these bamboo poles and makeshift structures for these hoardings.

It is astonishing for most Mumbaikars that the speed of putting up all these self-proclamatory banners is far more than the speed of getting work done in any sphere. The latter takes weeks of pleading, visits, runarounds for civic work, even small issues while there never seems to be any problem when it comes to these posters. They appear almost like magic and with Usain Bolt-like speed, are changed frequently with new pictures or messages. It leaves all quite wide-eyed and wondering where all this purpose and alacrity goes when it comes to changing a situation on the ground or addressing a problem.

We have also witnessed the civic authorities bundling away illegal posters from time to time. While all these may not be illegal, one can only hope for a cleaned-up city once the time period is over.