The DU campus was once the only place free from outdoor advertisement that loomed large across Dhaka, spoiling splendour and causing traffic hazards.

Be it a commercial, semi-commercial or residential area, the menace city dwellers' encounter most are billboards, neon signs, and bell-signs. It is a risk for drivers too, as billboards divert attention and blur road vision.

With different hues and attractive words, the billboards lure people into buying products. Banners and small boards cover trees, carrying names of coaching centres or private tutors.

Some billboards are permitted to be installed by the DU, but most were set up by advertising agencies with the permission of Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), DU officials said.

One billboard permitted by the DU was set up in the east corner of Curzon Hall. Another is found beside the DU solar energy park and some others beside the DU swimming pool. A huge billboard in front of the teachers' quarters in Nilkhet belongs to the DCC that set up some bell signs in the area.

Students say they dislike seeing billboards on the campus. "Ours is a pretty big campus with greenery and open spaces, which are unavailable in other parts of the city," said Syed Subeh Ashraf, a DU student. "We don't want billboards to add to visual pollution. We want to see nature."

A history teacher at the DU says the billboards in and around the campus made the environment "claustrophobic". "Moreover, obnoxious advertisements may intrude in the campus once the trend sets in," he said.

At present, one billboard can be seen within the boundary of DU behind the Central Library. Asked, DU Treasurer Syed Rashidul Hasan said the DU authorities were ignorant of it. He then queried his staff and said two billboards were being set up behind the library, one of which was permitted by the DU and the other by the DCC. He ordered a top to the work of both billboards.

The treasurer said renting out space for billboards does not violate DU regulations, as the university earns money out it. However, he said the amount is meagre. "It is no more than Tk 1 lakh a year," he said.

Unauthorised billboards far outnumbered 6,949 billboards authorised by the DCC until 2002. All authorised advertising boards lost their legality as the DCC stopped renewing contracts with the advertising agencies on July 19 last year.

"Still, some advertising agencies are fixing billboards on their own," a high official of the DCC said when he was asked if the corporation allowed the billboard behind the Central Library.

The DCC began dismantling the billboards in July 2003. But it came to a halt when the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court issued a stay order on November 17 last year, preventing the DCC from demolishing billboards for three months. The stay order was extended again by the Appellate Division on January 12.

The stay order came following a petition filed by Outdoor Advertising Owners Association with the Appellate Division to stay a High Court order on the raise in advertising rates by the DCC that went against advertisers.