The district administration in Dhanbad on Sunday, along with the Dhanbad Municipal Corporation and the police conducted a massive anti-encroachment drive on a 2 kilometers stretch between Park Market to Hatia, which is located less than a kilometer away from the district headquarters. During the drive, extension and projection of shops were removed.

The drive began at around 12.30 pm under the leadership of Sub Divisional Officer Surendra Prasad and continued till around 3 pm. More than 100 shop owners had themselves removed their extensions during this time, while the encroached portion of around 30 of them were removed by the municipal corporation workers and policemen.

Talking to reporters after the drive, Prasad said, “We have been running information campaigns all through the area since the last three days, appealing to the shopkeepers to remove their respective installation from the encroached portion of the road.”

“Majority of the shopkeepers had themselves removed their installations from the road before the beginning of the drive while some others removed the same after we began. However, for only a few, we had to use force,” he added.

The SDO was accompanied by Assistant Commissioner of Police Manoj Swargiyar and circle officer of Dhanbad Municipal Corporation Ritesh Kumar.

“The main problem in the area is that the shopkeepers extend their installments by putting furniture like benches, boxes, and shades outside their shop leading to the narrowing down of road. This creates a lot of difficulties in traffic movement as well as parking of vehicles of the customers coming to the market,” Prasad said.

He also informed that the authorities will carry out similar drives in all market areas to avoid traffic jams.

Earlier on November 24, the district administration also conducted a drive at Court Road area of Dhanbad adjacent to Hirapur, Hatia and Park Market. During this, they had removed several parked vehicles from the non-parking zones.

Both the drives were aimed at regulating the traffic in areas which witness large footfall of people. A large parking zone has also been developed by district administration adjacent to the court to facilitate parking of vehicles away from the court road, which houses a large number of government offices beside civil and criminal courts of Dhanbad.