BDA frees up nearly 5 acres of govt land in week-long eviction drive
During the drive, officials cleared 2.6 acres of land by demolishing 300ft of boundary wall, nine tin sheds, two bathrooms and 100ft of bamboo fence.
"The eviction at Pandra was completed today. We faced some amount of opposition from the locals, but it was largely a peaceful drive," BDA's liaison officer Subharnshu Mohanty said.
The move was part of BDA's week-long anti-encroachment drive carried out in several parts of the city to free up valuable govt land of encroachment.
In the past week, BDA's central eviction monitoring committee, with the help of local police, carried out back-to-back eviction drives at Lingipur and Sisupalgarh areas and freed up nearly three acres of govt land.
At Pandra, the general administration department had identified around 2.6 acres of land occupied by encroachers. "The department made a requisition and we carried out the drive accordingly. Now govt signboards have been installed at the site to ensure that it is not encroached upon," Mohanty added.
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Similarly, at Lingipur, the rural development department identified around 2.3 acres of land which were encroached upon. Accordingly, BDA officials demolished various structures, including houses, shops, staircases, hoardings, steel railings and boundary walls. Officials said that the eviction drive at Lingipur was carried out to facilitate the construction of a road from Lingipur filling station to Nuagaon filling station.
Now that the drive is completed, the rural development department will take up the road work, sources said.
At Sishupalgarh, the eviction drive was conducted for constructing a road and a drain for a major housing colony in the area. During the drive, six cement platforms, a building, six shops and houses and 18 tin houses were demolished and cleared.
"Bhubaneswar does have a lot of valuable govt land which is encroached upon. It is imperative that the govt should identify these places and clear the encroachment so that it could be used for public purposes," Pitambar Behera, a retired govt employee, said.
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