chennai for the last few weeks retired colonel shivraj and his wife laxmi have been travelling to trichy kumbakonam thanjavur and dindigul talking to local people and tearing down posters that deface public walls their aim is to create more awareness among people and make the country posterfree the prime minister has launched the swachh bharat abhiyan and we are trying in our own way to clean the country says the 82yearold who started the poster hatao campaign in delhi in 2009 the delhi prevention of defacement of property act 2007 became operative in march 2009 as the president of my colony in delhi i felt that most of the residents wanted to get rid of the posters somehow since then he has taken the campaign to mumbai in 2011 and chennai in 2013 we are not an ngo it is purely a citizencentric initiative he says the idea is to make people round the country aware of their duties we started with posters because it is easily done in tamil nadu the tamil nadu open places prevention of disfigurement act 1959 is already there col shivraj and laxmi have been coming to chennai every year since 2013 trying to meet government officials and going round the city taking down posters in 2012 we met the commissioner of police the collector and the chennai corporation commissioner and they promised to help but nothing much was done he says in 2014 col shivraj managed to meet then chief electoral officer praveen kumar he was very supportive and said he would ensure that no illegal posters or hoardings would be put up during the model code of conduct period and he did it said shivraj this year the couple who came down to the city on january 22 didnt manage to meet any government officials they were all busy but we did go to places like egmore and anna salai and take down posters we also visited other places in tn says shivraj who will fly back to delhi early saturday morning whats next on the agenda once we successfully execute the antiposter campaign across the country then we will tackle noise pollution he says with confidence