Laqshya Outdoors gives Punjab its first ever stainless steel bus shelters

OOH media company Laqshya Outdoors has a new contract in its kitty. The company will construct and maintain 112 and 68 bus shelters in Jalandhar and Ludhiana, respectively, in return for revenue through advertising space. The chief minister of Punjab, Prakash Singh Badal, inaugurated the first stainless steel bus shelter made in Jalandhar and dedicated it to the public on August 17.

This move by the government will ensure modern facilities to daily bus commuters without any financial burden on the exchequer. The government, in turn, will get revenue through licence fees.

Soumitra Bhattacharyya, chief executive officer, Laqshya Outdoors, tells afaqs!, “In times of growing vehicular traffic, improperly designed and rusting bus shelters are a risk. This results in commuters waiting on the roads, thus causing traffic nuisance and risk to the commuters. The Punjab government has taken the initiative to provide proper shelters, with proper information to commuters about the buses plying on the route. We, at Laqshya, are glad to partner with the Punjab government in achieving its vision.”

Talking about the transportation system in Punjab, Bhattacharyya shares that it is being built from scratch. Buses have been provided by the government and Laqshya is providing bus shelters with digital signage to provide relevant information to the passengers. Installations of the bus shelters are on in full swing in most parts of Jalandhar and Ludhiana. In some places, very basic temporary shelters have been installed to provide shade to the commuters. Some bus routes have started off and more are expected to follow, as bus procurement increases.

Discussing the potential of this medium, Bhattacharyya says, “Telecom brands go in for bus shelters on a long time basis to maintain their threshold visibility. Other companies, which have faith in OOH as a medium, are likely to go for it as well.”

Spice Mobile is one of the first clients whose advertisements appear on the digital displays of the newly installed bus shelter in Jalandhar.

Laqshya Media, which started its operations in 1997, owns a portfolio of media assets in the OOH advertising space. These include billboards, bus shelters, stadia rights, airports and digital screens, including at the new Hyderabad International Airport, foot overbridge with escalators at Indore, stainless steel bus shelters in Mumbai, public utilities in Indore and Bhopal, DLF Citi Center in Gurgaon, and railway media in Bengaluru, Ludhiana and Amritsar.