KARACHI, July 26: A meeting held at the Station Headquarters Karachi on Thursday decided that hoardings and billboards would be removed by August 10 since they might have been rendered unsafe by the recent storms.

Attended by the chief executive officers of the cantonment boards, representatives of COMKAR, the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) and officers from the Corps Headquarters and the Station Headquarters, the meeting deliberated upon the criteria for the installation of such structures and decided that no hoardings would be allowed on the rooftops of commercial or residential buildings. However, building wrappers would be allowed.

The meeting’s participants decided that the only allowable billboard sizes were 10ft by 20ft, 15ft by 45ft and 20ft by 60ft. Furthermore, no hoarding should be higher than 35 to 40 feet off the ground.

Henceforth, all such structures are to be certified by the Pakistan Engineering Council and the advertiser will deposit this certificate with the stakeholder. In addition, the gauge and strength of the sheet is to be examined by an expert and advertisers are encouraged to use LEDs.

The minimum distance between any two hoardings has been set at 50 metres and all billboards are required to be comprehensively insured to cover the loss of any aggrieved party in case of an accident.—APP