Silent area, don’t blow horn! Cross the road carefully! Give preference to the pedestrians! Negligence may cost your life! No parking! All these are the public messages given by business institutions on behalf of the Kathmandu Valley Traffic Office (KVTO). The cooperation between the KVTO and the business houses is some sort of symbiotic relationship. For the traffic police, it helps to get its messages across to the people. For the business houses the logos and trademark that comes along with those signs and messages is advertisement in a different way. One may call it social service, but charity does not always come without motif.
Business houses have come out with a bang sponsoring traffic signs, managing traffic lane divider and even taking care of the gardens and flower beds on traffic islands. One can even see a Sipradi Trading signboard welcoming the visitors at the main gate of the KVTO office at Bagghikhana, near Singha Durbar. Within the premises of the traffice office there is a big hoarding board with of traffic signs donated by Gorakhkali Rubber Udhyog, and another one provided by Coca-Cola at the gate of the canteen.
The KVTO says it is a relation for the good of both. “With the limited budget we have it is impossible to put those message for the public,” said a traffic police officer “Therefore, there is no other way than to invite the business houses.”
Sub-Inspector Prem Joshi, who looks after administration of the KVTO, also agreed that the budget they have is not sufficient for the public awareness activities. But he did not forget to add that the sponsors have come voluntarily but not by force.
Says a high ranking traffic police officer, “Often it is the business houses who come with the proposals. We see that the logo does not cover more than one third of the board, and the board should not obstruct other signboards.” When asked if those business houses seek any kind of favour, he said that there is no undue influences over the traffic office because of the sponsorships. “If they are found involved in any traffic violations rules will prevail, and they will not receive any preferential treatment.
Even if they invite the business houses to help in public awareness champagne, the KVTO does not have records of how many business houses are helping them. Most of the time the consent given to the business houses to put on the boards are verbal.
The traffic police can give permission to put boards and signs carrying traffic messages. But when it comes to lane separating work or building a traffic island it is metropolitian council which has to give permission. Business houses call it social service coupled with business. Jawlakhel Distillery, which is involved in making several traffic islands, lane separators and hoarding boards, believes that doing something for society is also a kind of advertisement but in a different way.
“Advertisement is just advertisement, but advertisement through social work is appreciated by all,” said the Marketing Manager Ek Narayan Sharma. “Sometimes traffic police or the metropolitan office ask us to sponsor those messages and signboard, and sometimes we propose them,” he said. ”This is the new style of advertising – advertising with music,” says Marketing Manager Amar Jyoti Ranjit of Nepal Overseas Trading Concern, the dealer of Castrol lubricants.
“Castrol is spending 800,000 a year in sponsoring traffic symbols and traffic islands. They asked us to help and we did,” he said. He recalled once the traffic police asked for 36 portable lane dividers but they gave only 10.
But the metropolitan office does not seem too happy with the ‘cooperation’ going on between the traffic office and the business houses. It even suspects that the business houses are eager to sponsor the traffic signs to avoid paying to the metropolis.
Accounts Officer Surya Tamrakar of the Lalitpur Sub-metropolitan City said that by hanging hoarding boards in the name of the traffic police, they escape from paying charges to the metropolitan. ”We charge Rs. 50 per square feet for all personal signboards, but we do not any from those signboards which has traffic message on it,” she said. “So the intention of the business houses looks dubious even if they are contributing some of their income for public interest.”
Her skepticism may have some reality as some of the boards have the advertisements more prominent than the traffic signs. There are also signs hanging on the poles at New Road, which should have contained two parts – one for the traffic signs and the other for the advertisement – but many of those pieces have the traffic signs missing.