Jamshedpur : The district administration and civic body, Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC) on Friday embarked on a massive anti-encroachment drive cleared the Sakchi Kalimati Road of congestion by removing as many as 150 road-side illegal constructions and kiosks.
The drive was targeted at anti-social elements to keep them at bay and curb activities of crime and eve teasing. The drive was carried a day after Amitabh Kaushal personally inspected the encroachment scenario by moving around the places in the city last night.
The kind of shops which faced the eviction axe included vegetable shops, fruit shops, tea stalls, snacks corner, hair-cutting salon and furniture shops. Experts feel that the city has not expanded horizontally, as a result of which a major chunk of the population continues to remain concentrated in a 5-km radius.
Along the Howrah Bridge on the Kalimati Road the team removed clusters of shops and kiosks. The drive was also carried near Jubilee Park’s Sakchi gate and the favorite tea stall near DC office was also removed.
Led by sub-divisional officer, Dhalbhum, Prem Ranjan and officer-in-charge, Sakchi IB Ojha, the anti-encroachment squad forced the vendors to disappear from the scene of Kalimati Road and also from Tube Division gate in Burmamines.
According to district officials, they would ensure that the market place is cleared of any type of encroachments including the manner in which the shopkeepers had extended their shops.
Encroachments in the city are omnipresent and thriving, much to the discomfort of the ordinary citizen. The city is known for the encroachments which blot the urban landscape.
Notably, during the three-hour long inspection by the DC, Amitabh Kaushal last night, it had come to fore that several push-cart vendors operating near the Howrah Bridge on Kalimati Road an opportunity to consume liquor. The police team led by senior superintendent of police, Amol V Homkar that accompanied Kaushal had also nabbed as many as six person while consuming liquor at some vendor who sold fruit-juice on push-cart.
Kaushal said the vendors and kiosks were seized from the places from where the administration had received complaints that anti-social elements used to consume liquor sitting there and also indulge in eve-teasing. �We cannot comprise with the safety of market place. Moreover , people also find it inconvenience to move into the market freely with the passages getting choked due to the make-shift shops,” said he said
According to him , they would ensure that the market place is cleared of any type of encroachments including the manner in which the shopkeepers had extended their shops.
Most of the shop-owners and owners of wayside hotel had removed the valuables before the demolition squad arrived there, but those ignored the squad had to face the ire of the administration.