Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has been unable to sell four out of 10 unipole advertisement sites across key areas in the national capital, as per the civic body’s data, despite the issue of illegal banners and hoardings in the city.
Localities under MCD are divided into 12 zones — South, Central, West, Karol Bagh, Najafgarh, City Sadar Paharganj, Keshav Puram, Civil Lines, Rohini, Narela, Shahdara North and Shahdara South. As per the geographical distribution of advertisement sites, MCD report shows that Karol Bagh has the largest number of unsold unipoles (88), followed by Keshav Puram (76), Shahdara South (62), South Zone (54), and City Sadar Paharganj Zone (41), Central (39), Civil Lines (33), Najafgarh (28), Shahdara north (21), Rohini (20), Narela (14), and West (9). Civil Lines has the highest proportion of unsold unipole sites — out of total 47 sites in the area, 33 (70%) are unsold — followed by 48% (76 out of 159) unsold sites in Keshav Puram, 46% in Karol Bagh, 44% in South Zone, and 43% in Rohini. As per the Outdoor Advertisement Policy 2017, approved by the Supreme Court, all outdoor advertisement in Delhi is under the charge of MCD. MCD’s annual data shows that the civic body earned around ₹ 362.49 crore from advertisement in 2025-26. One of the largest urban local body in India, MCD has one of the lowest per capita internal revenue, which amounted to ₹ 9806.58 crore in 2025-26.
Advertisement forms a key revenue component for the corporation.
The report by MCD’s remunerative projects cell, also seen by HT, shows that out of 1,235 designated unipoles across major arterial roads in Delhi, 485 sites are categorised as “unsold” in areas such as Karol Bagh, Civil Lines, and South Delhi.
