HARIPUR: District administration have finally swung into action to reclaim the illegally occupied space of the road and footpaths in the main bazaar and served notices on the encroachers to voluntarily remove their structures within seven days, official sources confirmed to Dawn here on Friday.

They said that on the growing complaints of road users and local residents about congestion in the main bazaar, the district administration and TMA worked out an anti-encroachment strategy, and during first phase, temporary encroachments were removed from main bazaar and link roads.

For the purpose of getting rid of cemented encroachments, the staff of TMA and district administration marked the spaces illegally occupied by the private owners and shopkeepers in the main bazaar.

They identified and marked over 350 shops occupying 3 ft to 7 ft of land illegally in front of their authorised space and all the shops had concrete structures.

“Yes we have served notices to over 350 illegal occupants of government land under anti-encroachment law and given them seven days to voluntarily remove the encroachments, otherwise the unauthorised structures would be razed with the machinery,” said FarazQureshi, Additional Assistant Commissioner II, while talking to Dawn.

He said that all the legal formalities had been fulfilled and main bazaar would be cleared of all encroachments without any discrimination.

To a question, he said that after the main bazaar, the link roads were also on the priority list of anti-encroachment operation of the administration.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2024