Vizianagaram Municipal Corporation (VMC) has taken up a special drive to remove encroachments in different parts of the city including the Cantonment-KL Puram Road, Kuppili Street, Lankapatnam, VT Agraharam, Kothaagraharam, Salipeta and other places.
Around 250 unauthorised structures have been removed recently. VMC Commissioner S.S. Varma, Assistant City Planners Ch. Madusudana Rao and P. Ammaji Rao directed the ward secretariat staff to identify illegal structures and inform them for further action.
It was observed that many people have constructed houses, sheds and structures for car parking in several places. A few apartment dwellers occupied adjacent land between their apartment and roads under the guise of development of small parks.
In some places, the dwellers had not moved to other areas where they were provided houses at free of cost. For instance, a long stretch near Vizianagaram Court Complex has been occupied for the last two decades.
The government provided houses in other locality, suggesting them to vacate the unauthorised structures since those had blocked movement of vehicles on Raipur-Visakhapatnam highway.
As there was no response from them, the special teams of VMC razed down those structures recently. With the skyrocketing of land prices particularly in commercial zones, many people have been occupying precious lands of the VMC.
Earlier, the VMC did not have sufficient strength to act tough with encroachments. However, with the establishment of ward secretariats in all 50 wards, the Corporation is able to identify its lands and take steps for removing the encroachments.
VMC commissioner Varma urged the people to inform the officials and staff of secretariats if they found any illegal occupation of common public areas. He said that the VMC was carrying all the required documents to claim over its lands since many litigants are approaching courts to stop removal of illegal structures.
Mr. Ammaji Rao and Mr. Madhusudana Rao said that they were taking the cooperation from local public representatives also and that the encroachments on the narrow roads in their localities were leading to traffic jams.
Vizianagaram MLA Kolagatla Veerabhadra Swamy also directed the corporators to extend their help to VMC in making the city encroachment-free.
