The people of Vijayawada have been enduring the severe problem caused by unauthorised places of worship for a long time. Attempts by civic officials to remove illegal structures situated on roads and pavements are resisted and all sorts of vested interests enter the scene.
According to sources in the Municipal Corporation, the city has 60 to 70 such structures of religious importance and they are major impediments to the movement of traffic. A majority of them are in the old city.
But there is no clarity on how the civic authorities will deal with this situation, given the strong observations made by the Supreme Court on Tuesday. Pulling up the States for not curbing encroachment of public space in the name of religion, the Supreme Court observed: “God never intended to obstruct public way and this is an insult to God.”
Mayor K. Sridhar told The Hindu that the Supreme Court had issued directions in this regard a few years ago and that its latest orders would be duly acted upon after studying it. “We will discuss the issue with Chief Minister and implement the rules strictly for widening various major roads in the city”, he said but refrained from giving the number of such illegal structures and what the municipal authorities would do with them.
It may be noted that the VMC officials had to beat a hasty retreat when some residents of Gulabithota refused to let a local temple demolished earlier this year. In another recent incident of politics, public sentiment and issues of rehabilitation thwarting the attempts of VMC to raze an illegal religious structure to the ground, inhabitants of a colony at Ramavarappadu which is itself an encroachment, did not allow the civic officials to demolish a shrine located there. It was to pave the way for inner ring road. Assurances to show alternative land did not convince the residents and the demolition had to be given up.
The city has about 70 such religious structures affecting smooth movement of traffic