E-Paper
PMC undertakes massive anti-encroachment drive at Koregaon Park
The Koregaon Park locality attracts maximum crowds during New Year’s Eve as youngsters prefer to dine and drink in various restaurants in this area
Just a day before the New Year revelry was to begin with parties and gatherings, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) carried out a massive anti-encroachment drive in the upscale Koregaon Park area. The encroachment action was taken against shops, small restaurants, and restro-bars in lanes 6 and 7 of Koregaon Park by the Dhole Patil Road Regional Office on Saturday.
The Koregaon Park locality attracts maximum crowds during New Year’s Eve as youngsters prefer to dine and drink in various restaurants in this area.
One of the officials said, “During December 31, most of the hotels and restaurants arrange parties and it creates traffic problems, especially in areas like Koregaon Park, Mundhwa Road, and Ghorpadi where most hotels and restaurants hosting year-end parties are located. It also creates a law-and-order problem. So, we initiated action by removing illegal side and front margins at many hotels and restaurants.”
On Saturday, the Dhole Patil Road ward office, Building Permission and Development, Sky and Sign Department jointly conducted an anti-encroachment drive on illegal hotels and shops at Koregaon Park and Ghorpade area.
In Koregaon Park lanes numbers 6 and 7, PMC conducted a drive and demolished around 7,300 square feet of illegal stalls, sheds, and unauthorised front and side margins of various establishments.
In the Ghorpadi area, the PMC anti-encroachment department cleared illegal front and side margin construction and stalls. Civic officials removed 2,000 square feet of construction at the side and front margin in B G Shirke Road, Bharat Forge Road, and B T Kawade Road areas.
Rohidas Gavane, executive engineer of Zone-4 said, “We are regularly conducting anti-encroachment drives in Koregaon Park, Ghorpadi, Viman Nagar, Lohegaon, and Vishrantwadi areas, especially on the side and front margin of hotels, restaurants, roadside illegal stalls and eateries. Today (Friday) we conducted action on the Koregaon Park and Ghorpadi areas and cleared the side and front margins of many hotels and restaurants.”
After the monsoon, PMC started anti-encroachment drives in the city by the demolition of illegal buildings, side margin sheds, removal of illegal hawker stalls, etc.
In August, PMC Commissioner Vikram Kumar took a review of encroachments in the city during a meeting with department officials. Kumar had instructed officials to remove illegal constructions. He also said that junior engineers should take action on illegal constructions in a fortnight. If that is not done, then we will take action against the junior engineers. I have asked the department officials to submit a daily progress report to the commissioner’s office. He was also instructed to conduct joint action on illegal constructions, stalls, side and front margin of hotels, rooftop hotels and illegal hawkers.
Yuvraj Deshmukh, superintendent engineer of Building Permission and Development Department said, “It is a routine anti-encroachment exercise by the department. We have already served notices to all illegal constructions and after that, we took action.”
On Friday, PMC Building Permission and Development Department took action on 11 illegal buildings and demolished around 500 flats in Ambegaon.
Earlier in October, PMC had taken action against unauthorised constructions in the Karve Nagar area and removed 2 rooftop hotels and illegal construction of 12,000 square feet. Besides that, PMC had removed around 3,500 square feet of unauthorised construction near Hotel Vaishali & Queen’s Shop on Fergusson College Road.
