LAHORE, Aug 9: The provincial relief commissioner has decided to hold the firms and advertisers hiring hoarding of these firms responsible for the deaths and loss of property to be caused to any citizen.

In a letter to the district coordination officer (DCO), the commissioner has directed that the agency which has erected a billboard and the companies hiring these publicity sites would have to pay compensation to the family concerned that would suffer a loss of life or property in case of collapse of the hoardings even during windstorms or otherwise.

At present, there is no provision for fixing responsibility and seeking compensation from the firm(s) as many lives have been lost in various incidents of collapse of billboards in the city.

The value of the compensation will be decided on case-to-case basis, it adds.

The DCO has circulated this letter to the Parks and Horticulture Authority, which allows erection of billboards, and all town municipal administrations.

KITE FLYING: To make the kite-flying ban more effective, the provincial government has sent a draft law to all MPAs elected from Lahore district, the district nazim and the capital city police officer (CCPO) for seeking their comments on it.