Deccan Chronicle             10.01.2014

Civic body clears encroachments amidst protest

Owners of local shops,
automobile workshops and metalware stores got into a heated argument
with the officials who carted away the scrap material, metal bars and
other junk that was stored on the road.

The road was widened a couple of years ago to ease traffic but the encroachments meant it was back to square one, residents say.

Yaseen
Shakir, 61, a resident of the area said, “The whole point of widening
the road is to avoid traffic congestion. People have started putting up
unfinished grills, automobiles, windows and other stuff on the road. I
have myself escaped accidents several times. It is important to remove
such things from roads.”

Shaik Zaheer, 42, a carpenter who has a
shop on the road, said that corporation workers did not give him time to
move his stuff off the road.

“The moment they arrived, they
started picking up things and loading them on to trucks. They should
have at least warned us,” he said.

Mukesh Singh, section officer
with GHMC’s town planning wing, said they had received numerous
complaints regarding encroachments on the road.

“We launch these
drives whenever there is a complaint. This is a routine procedure. But,
sometimes, people just don’t co-operate and we are forced to seize their
stuff. Sometimes, we warn them once and come back the next day, only to
find everything still lying on the road.”