In Favour Of A Clean Capital

Billboards, notice boards, hoarding boards, graffiti and posters are what have marred the beauty of the capital city. While erecting hoarding boards and selling or renting out space have become a lucrative business over the years, almost all road side areas have become crowded with billboards, giving an ugly look to the city. Then there are posters and graffiti, mostly of the so-called revolutionary parties, to further spoil the beauty of the city. People have been raising their voices against the practice of erecting hoarding boards and graffiti while some individuals tried to remove the posters pasted on the walls during election time. The Election Commission also made a genuine attempt during the CA election to discourage the practice of pasting posters and painting the walls with graffiti. But nothing worked. However, now there is hope that the city will overcome the problem. The Supreme Court the other day issued a verdict in the name of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) to remove the notice boards, graffiti, hoarding boards, advertising boards and posters put up at different locations of the city.  A division of the bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Kumar Shrestha and Om Prakash Mishra gave the verdict, which is expected to be a milestone in freeing the historical city from unnecessarily erected bill boards, graffiti and posters.

Indeed, the graffiti and posters have been the big enemies of this ancient city for years. While the businessmen resort to billboards to advertise their products, the political organisations capture the walls to write graffiti during street agitations or the general conventions of the parties. Immediately after the 1990 political change, the walls of the city were under the control of the present day CPN-UML. Many have not forgotten the clash that occurred between the cadres of the CPN-UML and the then Janamorcha led by Dr Baburam Bhattarai to capture the huge walls of the Nepal Electricity Authority compound at Bagh Bazaar. Until a few years ago, the film producers were also used to dirtying the city with the posters of their films. But in recent years, the film producers have corrected their habit.