A number of places in and around the steel city are facing encroachment on government owned land during the lockdown, imposed here since April 22.

The Circus Maidaan in Golmuri along the Golmuri-Telco Road One is one such encroached site.

Spread across around three acres, the Circus Maidaan is used for holding circuses and also for facilitating sale of woolen goods and garments by the Tibetan traders during the winter.

The Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee which looks after the land in the city had put up a new boundary wall as the previous one was worn out and damaged in January this year. But after the second wave of the Coronavirus pandemic and the resultant lockdown, a section of slum-dwellers broke a portion of the boundary wall and started setting up thatched houses at the Circus Maidaan.

The encroachers, mostly hailing from Golmuri area, have set up dozens of thatched houses.

The district administration officials were engaged in curbing Covid cases across the city.

"We are aware about the encroachment at the Circus Maidaan and elsewhere in the city during the lockdown. Let the lockdown be lifted, we will raze the unauthorised houses and clear the encroachment, "said JNAC city manager Ravi Bharti to The Telegraph Online.

Bharti said as the administration is giving utmost priority to curb the pandemic, it did not have time to deal with the encroachment issue, but it is aware of what is going on at Circus Maidaan in Golmuri and elsewhere in the city.

Other places where government land has been encroached upon include Nurse Hostel in Baradwari and Golpahadi area in Parsudih.