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Public land or parking lots?

BHUBANESWAR: If you unintentionally park your vehicle in front of big business establishments or private educational institutions in the city, you will surely find private security personnel running towards you in no time and literally forcing you to move out from the area on which they don’t have even any ownership.

Thanks to the stoic silence of the administration, vast public land along the main roads of the city are fast getting converted into private parking lots.

From Jayadev Vihar Square to Nandankanan, the whole stretch is dotted with big hotels and educational institutions. Inside the hotel premises, huge swimming pools, open lawns and green patches have been created to attract customers.

As commercial interests dominated the minds of the hoteliers, customers are pushed to mad scramble to park their vehicles on roadside in front of their buildings. In the name of beautification, several hotels have virtually extended their premises by encroaching the pavements. In Patia area, educational institutions have systematically carved out dedicated parking lots for their students, staff and visitors on public road. If one halts for a moment in front of those parking chambers, security personnel would waste no time flinging upon some strong instructions.

Take the example of the busiest stretch of Janpath. All business establishments throw traffic out of gear during busy hours by laying siege to public land patches in front of their premises.

What the municipal administration has done so far? All attention has been diverted to evicting poor roadside vendors while vast land patches have been allowed to be occupied by the high and mighty.

When contacted, Commissioner of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) Aparajita Sarangi said she had no idea how much land had been encroached by the hoteliers and other organisations.

“We will go for proper demarcation of public land along important roads shortly,” she said. The administration was expected to start identifying encroachments zone-wise after November 15, Ms. Sarangi said.

Though optimism over action against rich and famous had been shown on a few occasions in the past, the administration has so far not been able to take on the elite encroachers.

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Public land or parking lots?

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