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`Operation Encroachment' launched at Avvai Thidal

Special Correspondent

Houses, a flower stall and a temple pulled down "Alternative accommodation should have been provided"

— Photo: T. Singaravelou

DEMOLITION DRIVE: Structures such as temple and houses being demolished by the PWD in New Saram in Puducherry on Saturday.

Puducherry : Teams of workers under the direction of the PWD and revenue officials demolished four houses, a flower shop and an old Amman temple in Avvai Thidal in New Saram on Saturday as they had come up on Government `poromboke land'.

Gigantic bulldozers were used to bring down the structures. The three-hour `Operation Encroachment' began at 8 a.m. despite protest from the locals and owners of the structures. Ohm Sakthi Segar, MLA, (AIADMK) objected to the operation, demanding that alternative accommodation should have been provided to families before their houses were demolished. The houses and other structures had been in existence for more than 20 years.

Those deprived of the houses would be accommodated in tenements of the Puducherry Slum Clearance Board (PSCB), according to tahsildar of the Oulgaret Municipality V. Ramesh.

They were now housed in temporary places such as marriage halls. Mr. Ramesh told The Hindu that the structures had come up on Government `poromboke' land. Despite several notices, the families and the flower seller did not shift. The demolition had been carried out on the basis of a court order, he said. The idols in the temple were shifted to a nearby shrine before the temple was pulled down.

With the removal of the structures, the PWD could go ahead with the laying of a link road between Thendral Nagar and the Kamaraj Salai. The site now available measured around 600 sq feet, the tahsildar said. A posse of policemen provided security at the site.

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