The Chennai Corporation’s zonal officials are now working round the clock to remove bunk shops in the city.
The civic body’s drive has been intensified as they have been asked to submit the list of removed encroachments by Wednesday.
Over thousand bunk shops have been identified in the city. As many as 17 shops in Kodambakkam, 36 in Anna Nagar, 8 in Valasaravakkam, 6 in Alandur, 18 in Tondiarpet, and 22 in Thiru. Vi. Ka. Nagar were removed this summer.
The Corporation has removed shops that encroached upon 222 km of bus routes. Most of the added areas did not report removal of bunk shops as a number of the shops are on roads controlled by the highways department.
According to Corporation sources, Teynampet has emerged as the zone with the largest number of bunk shops removed this summer. As many as 62 bunk shops have been removed from bus routes in Teynampet.
The Chennai Corporation’s drive followed a Madras High Court order in March asking the Chennai Corporation to remove unauthorised bunk shops within four months. The order was passed while disposing of a writ petition by K.R. Ramaswamy alias ‘Traffic’ Ramaswamy.
In an affidavit, Corporation commissioner Vikram Kapur sought time for removing the shops and said the civic body was “taking action to remove the unauthorised bunk shops after ascertaining the list of bunk shops located in zones.”
The civic body declared that bunk stalls were permanent encroachments on footpaths and roads, which obstructed free flow of traffic.
The civic body has also instructed persons with disability to remove their bunk shops, failing which the Corporation would take action. They will be given preference in the allocation of Corporation shops when they are being auctioned. The civic body will also permit such affected persons to participate in auctions (for a maximum of three times) without any security deposit.
Improvement works on pavements will gain momentum after the encroachments are removed. Work on 71 bus routes, identified a few months ago for development of 48 km of additional footpaths, will be taken up shortly.
