BENGALURU: It was a rainy day. Laxmi Kumar and her husband Col. Shivraj were sipping their cuppa in the balcony of their Munirka Vihar flat in south Delhi. Out of the blue, Laxmi told her husband to grab two pieces of cloth and accompany her to the building compound. They began to peel off the wet and ugly posters plastered across the compound wall and in no time, it was spick and span.

This was back in August 2009. The elderly couple’s zeal to rid Delhi of banners gave birth to the Poster Hatao campaign. And there has been no looking back. The couple has travelled to different parts of India to take down the eyesores that dot public walls.

The duo is now in Bengaluru to spread awareness about the Karnataka Open Places (Prevention of Disfigurement) Act 1981. They will conduct events with the help of police and volunteers and pull down hoardings and banners. “It wasn’t easy in Delhi. Often we had to carry buckets of water to the spot since it was so difficult to scrape off the posters. What’s worse, after all the hard work we put in, the posters were back the next day,” said Laxmi.

Armed with scraping tools, the couple has taken the anti-poster campaign to parts of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Gurgaon. They have met the civic authorities before involving the citizens in the clean-up exercise. Because of their persistence, the cities became poster-free when the code of conduct came into effect during the municipal elections. “The commissioners and police forces have been very supportive in every city. We are hoping for the same response in Bengaluru. Taking down posters can be a risky job,” said the couple who have ripped out thousands of them.

“It is disheartening that citizens are unaware of the law which makes disfigurement of public places a punishable offence,” said Col (Retd) Shivraj, 83, who filed a PIL against the municipal corporations of Delhi last May for gross violation of the Outdoor Advertisement Policy, 2007. The couple’s only daughter stays in Bengaluru.

If they see a poster in their surrounding, it is hard for the couple to resist removing it. “Even if it is a trip to the market, my wife and I keep our mission in mind,” signed off Col Shivraj, who’s also the president of Munirka Vihar RWA.

Each citizen should do his bit

Removing a single poster takes at least five minutes. If there are one crore posters in the city and if one crore persons take off one each, Bengaluru will be clean in a few minutes

Col Shivraj

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Under the Karnataka Open Places (Prevention of Disfigurement) Act, 1981, those guilty of unauthorized disfigurement through advertisements could be punished with imprisonment extending up to six months or fine extending upto a thousand rupees or both.

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