The Ballari City Corporation on Thursday took up an anti-encroachment drive along the Sheikhsha Vali Dargah Road in the city to lay a 30-ft road.
As many as 80 structures, mostly toilets, staircases, compound walls, and a couple of buildings, were razed to the ground with the help of earth movers.
The anti-encroachment drive went unhindered with the residents volunteering to remove the encroached portions on their own.
The road was once an important link connecting the city with Anantapur.
After a new road was laid adjacently and upgraded as National Highway 63, the old road was gradually encroached upon by poor people during the past three decades.
Corporation authorities said that the drive was necessitated to lay a 30-ft road with open drains as it had become very congested.
In the absence of a drain, stormwater gushed into the houses during the rainy season. Laying of a new road was proposed under the 13th State Finance Commission and the survey for the same had been done earlier.
The residents had been asked to clear the encroachments by the officials.
Corporation commissioner M.K. Nalawadi, along with Executive Engineer Thimmappa, who supervised the drive, informed that the work of laying the road would be taken up immediately.
