Hoardings make civic body cash-rich

Call it corporatisation. The Greater Bangalore City Corporation (GBCC) is turning positive with regards to its revenue-mobilisation drive.

By tweaking its strategies on regulating advertisement hoardings dotting the city's skyline, the GBCC has succeeded in raking in Rs 60 crore in the last 10 months "" registering a seven-fold increase over the corresponding period in 2006-07. With one more month to go this fiscal, the GBCC expects its revenues from advertisements to touch Rs 80 crore.

The huge money being plunked into the GBCC coffers in the recent months has, in fact, surprised several of its officials.

"All these years, the revenue generated from the issue of advertisement licences was very poor. There are about 3,500 authorised advertisement hoardings in the city, but the money earned from these used to be in the range of Rs 6 - 7 crore. The nexus of corporators-officials-advertising agencies had ensured that the civic body's cash-bag always remained empty. But now the GBCC has turned cash-rich. The transformation has stunned us as it has occurred in the last five months," a GBCC official admitted.

While the officials point towards their commissioner S Subramanya for having scripted the success story, the latter told Business Standard: "We just infused some corporate culture into our style of operations. We knew what potential our advertisement wing had in terms of sourcing money. We just decided to play big and bold."

Subramanya, who had served in the finance secretariat and was a key player in preparing the state budget, used his expertise to plug the leakages and introduce novel concepts to scale up the GBCC's revenue from advertisements.

One such move was the calling of tenders to install LED (light emitting diode) electronic display boards in December 2007. Explained Subramanya: "As Bangalore began to emerge as a global brand, we thought of giving a facelift to its skyline. We wanted people visiting the city to feel differently, that's how we hit upon the idea of giving licenses for installation of LED electronic displays."

Seven important locations such as Commercial Street, Brigade Road, Minerva Circle and Jayanagar were selected for installing LED displays in accordance with the engineering design specified by the GBCC.

The LED concept, in a way, changed the dynamics of the advertisement business in the city, said GBCC assistant commissioner G M Gangadharaswamy, who is in-charge of the advertisement wing.

"For the first time we saw big market players like Adlabs Films of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (R-ADAG) and Times Innovative Media Limited of the Bennett, Coleman & Company Ltd (BCCL) entering the fray which was earlier dominated by smaller local players," Gangadharaswamy said.

Of the 14 companies that participated in the bidding, the tender was bagged by Adlab Films for Rs 25.02 crore. "We realised that we were on the right track," Gangadharaswamy said.

LEDs have turned out to be a win-win situation from both the advertising agency and the GBCC. While the agency gets multiple slots at a given place and make quick money, GBCC gets an one hour slot to air news related to civic issues.

Buoyed by the big moolah and big players, the GBCC opened up the bus shelter segment for advertisers. There are around 1,200 bus shelters in GBCC limits and the advertisement space available at each of these bus-stops is 260 sq ft, that is roughly the size of a conventional hoarding.

Each bus stop had the potential to fetch a ground rent of Rs 2 lakh per annum, advertisement tax of Rs 87.25 per sq m and service tax at 12.36 per cent. In the tenders that were called recently for 508 shelters, Times Innovative Media Limited bagged the advertisement rights for 280 bus shelters. In all, the GBCC managed to mobilise Rs 10.09 crore.

Apart from LED hoardings and bus shelters, the GBCC has tightened its grip on the conventional hoardings in the city. "We have revised the advertisement bye-laws and are cracking down on illegal hoardings which account for a major slippage in revenue," Gangadharaswamy said.

The civic body has also used underpasses, flower pots, garbage bins, road medians and public toilets to sell space to advertisers. The GBCC has also been eyeing the road to the new Bangalore International Airport.

"We hope to rake in close to Rs 30 crore from the advertisement space that will be available at the bus stops and underpasses on that route," a GBCC official said.

However, the GBCC's route-map to mop up revenue has not gone well with the smaller players. Allegations pertaining to favouritism in award of contracts have begun to crop up.

A small advertiser said: "The officials are taking advantage of the absence of an elected body in the GBCC. The big players will end our run." But GBCC officials contends: "We have to mean business if Bangalore has to change."