Kolkata: Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will yet again waive off fees for conventional advertisements on temporary display boards during Durga Puja but it will tax puja committees that set up LED boards to display advertisements on their premises.The civic body has decided to charge Rs 600 per sqft each day for makeshift LED hoardings or flexes, said a KMC advertisement department official. The civic body has communicated the decision in a letter written to the secretary of Forum For Durgotsav, an umbrella body of Durga Puja organisers. All other forms of puja advertisements that include hoardings, banners and flexes without LED will be exempted from paying taxes, sources said.The KMC advertisement department will, however, get tough on a section of puja organisers who defy a civic guideline and delay the removal of advertisements. “We will make it clear to all puja organisers that the makeshift advertisements have to be mandatorily removed after Dashami,” said a KMC official.Expressing his dissatisfaction over the role of a section of puja committees in the delay in the removal of such structures, a senior KMC official said that after the deadline, the civic body would remove the bamboo structures, but the materials would be seized and wouldn’t be returned to the decorators.Similarly, the civic brass is annoyed over the non-removal of bamboo structures from along some of the city’s major roads that are used for displaying advertisements during Durga Puja. Several neighbourhoods include Ultadanga, Narkeldanga, Sarat Bose Road, Asutosh Mukherjee Road (Bhowanipore) and Golf Green, among others, where the bamboo structures are not taken off pavements or roads within the KMC advertisement department deadline.
