In the past, cyclonic winds, thunderstorms have caused several accidents in Hyderabad where the hoardings had been blown away causing damage to vehicles and public property. Alleging to same the municipal body: Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has taken the decision of banning flex creatives at hoardings and Unipoles everywhere in the city.

GHMC had time and again been coming up with strict directives and an exhaustive list of Dos and Don'ts not withstanding, the menace of rickety hoardings causing any harm to the localites in any way.

The ban will stand until June 15 in the city with authority orders to the media owners to remove existing flexes from their sites. As per the official records, Hyderabad outdoor industry is majorly dominated by large size formats with 2,864 hoardings and 350 Unipoles. Along with these two, other formats which exist in the city are BQS & Foot-Over-Bridges. Its OOH market size is approx. INR 71.1 Cr Per Annum with the decent budget of INR 56.0 Lac per Month. In the OOH charts, Hyderabad is the second most important state after Bangalore in the South India zone. 

Talking about the same, CDV Subba Rao, CEO, Prakash Arts said, "This is a common practice that authorities follow every year and definitely we are in support of it since it is to safeguard the people of Hyderabad. Currently the authority has notified for one month after which there will be a weather review and depending on it a further decision will be taken by the municipal body." 

The GHMC is expected to be introducing major reforms into the regulation of displaying ads and the reasons which not for once can be considered trivial are the city being cyclone prone, hoardings mushrooming along the roads get blown away by even a small gust of wind, jeopardizing public life and property. The decision was in lieu taken by the authority keeping in view the safety of people on the streets compared to what happened last year when severe weather conditions had caused multiple mishaps. 

As per the IMD report, the city is expected to experience up to 510 cm rains with gusty winds ranging between 100 and 150 km per hour. The weather conditions could also cause lightening, thunder and hailstorms in the coming month. The flexes have already been removed.