The city Corporation has identified more than 300 cases of commercial establishments and hawkers encroaching into footpaths and public roads, causing trouble to pedestrians as well as motorists.
The civic body is not gearing up for action against the encroachments, as part of the town planning standing committee’s series of steps to address parking and traffic issues in the cities.
Count taken
“Officials of the engineering and health wing have been for the past few weeks taking a count of the commercial establishments causing obstructions to pedestrians with additional constructions in front of their shops. We also have a list of all licensed street vendors in the city.
This list has been used to identify those who have been illegally occupying the streets,sources said.
As per the figures received from areas under the main office as well as the zonal offices, we have more than 300 cases of encroachments.
Action to be taken
The action to be taken will be decided after a meeting with the Mayor, said Palayam Rajan, Chairman of the city Corporation’s town planning committee.
The Mayor’s complaint redressal cell, which was opened last month, has been receiving several complaints regarding such encroachments, as well as on the high parking fees charged by some shopping malls and multiplexes.
Shopping malls and major hospitals in the city have been charging money from customers for parking their vehicles on the premises, in violation of the Kerala Municipal Building Rules (KMBR), sources said.
According to the KMBR, permits can be allocated to a commercial establishment only if it has adequate parking space in proportion to the area of the building. Private parking lots, independent of buildings, need to take a license from the local body by paying the licence fee.
Mr.Rajan said that the Deputy Secretary has been asked to prepare a list of those who have taken the license from the Corporation to run parking lots where fee can be collected.
Action will be taken against the rest.
A second notice has been served to the commercial establishments which were found to have converted their designated parking lots for other purposes, after their initial reply was found to be unsatisfactory.
Second notice
The second notice was served to 27 out of the total of 46 commercial establishments which were found to be lacking in parking space.
