The Corporation of Chennai, during its budget session, passed a resolution to strictly enforce its regulation on Tamil signage on shop fronts. A deadline of 31st May has been fixed for all shops and establishments to ensure that signage in Tamil occupies at least 50 per cent of the space on their signboards. This move is in keeping with the fact that all the States in the country are doing their best to protect their respective languages and give them prominence.

Immediately after the passing of the resolution by the Corporation, the Mayor of Chennai began leading an awareness drive on the regulation that is to come into effect. It should, however, be realised that this is not the first such attempt; the earlier one was in the 1990s when Dr. Thamizhkudimagan, who was then in the Government, led a similar attempt. However, after a change in Government, the move lost steam.

It would be relevant to point out here that less than 50 per cent of the city’s shops and establishments have complied with the order though it has been in existence since the 1990s. The Government would do well to mull over why this is so and discuss ways and means of ensuring that this becomes a self-governed issue and not one that will be complied with only when the civic bodies jump into overdrive.

Meanwhile, while insisting on this change, it would have been even better in the interests of aesthetics and uniform layouts/skylines, if the Corporation had used the opportunity to also implement a uniform and standard code for signage across the city. Today, while the city’s skyline is much improved after the removal of large outdoor billboards and hoardings, it suffers from a complete lack of standardisation when it comes to signage on shops and establishments. This not only leaves an impression of visual clutter but also makes the task of looking for information on them an exercise by itself. Such standardisation is a practice adopted in most world-class cities and Singapore is perhaps the best example. It is also relevant to point out that Singapore has four official languages and gives prominence to all four in its signages.

In Singapore, to which the State Government regularly looks for inspiration for many things, ranging from waterways to shopping malls, though perhaps not with the same degree of success, all signages come under the Building Control Act and specifically within the sub-section of Outdoor Advertising Regulations. Some of the relevant details are given in the accompanying box. In addition, Singapore also has regulations for signage on heritage buildings, which come under the Urban Redevelopment Authority as part of conservation guidelines. Details of these are also given in the box. In addition to these, commercial buildings follow their own standard signage requirements, giving their constituent units a uniform look. Similar regulations, for heritage buildings or otherwise, are also to be found in cities such as London and Dubai. In India, the city of Jaipur has been able to implement a regulation on uniform signage in the central business district of the old city. Why doesn’t the Corporation follow suit, especially now that it is determined to pay greater attention to one aspect of signage?