Karnataka - Hubli-Dharwad   

Hubli corporation launches drive to clear encroachments

Staff Correspondent

Nodal officers appointed to supervise the operation to clear pavements

MAKING WAY FOR PEDESTRIANS: Employees of the Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation removing furniture of a roadside eatery on Coen Road during a drive to clear encroachments on pavements.

HUBLI: The Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation on Friday began clearing encroachments on the newly-constructed footpaths of the twin cities.

Encroachments on footpaths such as display boards and temporary platforms erected by vendors were removed by the corporation staff with the help of police. The zonal officers concerned, Assistant Executive Engineers and police officials supervised the work.

Senior officials of the HDMC said that the corporation had taken the issue seriously and would conduct the drive off and on over the next fortnight.

Nodal officers have been appointed to supervise the clearing of the encroachments, they said.

S.A. Mathad, Joint Commissioner, and S.S. Phatke, Executive Engineer, Hubli (North), have been appointed nodal officers for monitoring the "clearance drive" in Dharwad and Hubli respectively.

The HDMC has formed squads for the purpose. The Chief Zonal Officers and Assistant Executive Engineers would team with police officials and conduct the drive as and when they come across such encroachments, they said.

The HDMC had taken up a similar drive after it found that most of the pavements constructed after the completion of the demolition drive to clear encroachments on the corporation property had been encroached by vendors and at some places the shopkeepers.

To supplement the drive, the police banned parking of vehicles in 300 metres radius around the Kittur Channamma Circle and even declared it a "no-hawking zone."

But as the works under the Rs. 30-crore road improvement project began, vendors started appearing again on the pavements.

Following several complaints from the public about poor traffic management in the twin cities, he HDMC and the police are coordinating with each other.

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