Jamshedpur: Anti-encroachment drive to ease chaos at Mango

Jamshedpur, July 19:Despite efforts by the traffic police to ease chaos on roads, the traffic scene in the city is getting from bad to worse. Encroachments by shopkeepers have compounded the problem.

The administration has embarked on an anti-encroachment drive on a large scale. This drive will make a way for smooth flow of traffic. Acting on frequent complaints made by residents, the traffic police started the first phase recently at Sakchi. On Tuesday, a team from Mango Notified Area Committee (MNAC) launched a drive at Mango.

The policemen present on the spot removed the make-shift shops and the wares forcibly on the road side.  The kind of shops which faced the eviction axe included vegetable shops, fruit shops, tea stalls, and snacks corner.

Lakhs of vehicles, lakhs of people, a few hundred flats and a few dozen shops and malls have mushroomed here. While old settlers find it difficult to adjust to the new situation, newcomers find it messy.

Traffic constables on duty for more than eight hours are tired of managing the crowd because twice during the day whenever more than 400 school buses and autos hit the streets, everything goes haywire.

“You install traffic signals or paint the streets black and white with zebra crossing signs. Unless sufficient space is given for traffic to move smoothly, the problem cannot be solved,” said a constable.

The traffic police have also decided to serve notices to shopkeepers and vendors who have extended their shops over the roads, leaving little space for pedestrians and smooth passage of vehicles, but it also failed to mount pressure on the receivers for a long time.

Initially, not only a large number of shopkeepers had cleared the space in front of their shops but also vendors had shifted themselves to nearby spaces clearing the passage. However, they started encroaching the road gradually after experiencing that the police officials were not taking the anti-encroachment drive seriously.

After the failure of the local bodies in eradicating encroachments, the district police authorities have come forward to get the encroachments cleared for easing out congestion.

 “Most of the traffic jams are due to laxity of authorities. The problem can be solved if the administration takes the issue of encroachments seriously. But we all know why and how these encroachments come up,” said a resident.

“Encroachment has been a decades-old issue but yes, now it has become a kind of trade and people have been minting money by seizing land and transferring it to others. Not only this, houses, farms, agencies belonging to some known faces of the city have also been constructed in areas of Mango, Jugsalai, Chhota Govindpur and Karandih,” said a youth BJP leader. He said that though the party has raised the issue several times with the administration, they have received assurances so far.