Drive launched to demolish encroachments in Nellore

Aim is to decongest main shopping localities along Trunk Road

Crackdown: Illegal structures being demolished in Nellore on Wednesday.

Increased encroachments on road margins and pavements have resulted in the traffic congestion reaching alarming proportions in Nellore even as the arterial roads in the city’s main shopping areas are witnessing nearly 90% excess load in terms of vehicular and pedestrian movement every day.

The sorry state of affairs stemmed from the fact that for a whopping seven lakh population of the city, there is the arterial Trunk Road that has developed as the only main shopping destination over so many decades.

As of now, not much scope is witnessed for expanding urban amenities in the Trunk Road area as it is surrounded by the Chennai-Kolkata railway line, the Penna river and the Swarnala Cheruvu.

In the face of no immediate alternatives, the authorities have turned their attention to various possibilities for decongesting the main shopping localities and traffic junctions along Trunk Road.As part of this, massive demolition of encroachments has begun in the VRC Centre (Venkatagiri Rajah’s College), Vegetable Market and Madras Bus Stand areas.

As the JCBs arrived at the road between VRC and Old Zilla Parishad Office on Wednesday, shop owners had no option but to allow the officials to carry on the demolition drive as they were removing just the structures on the pavements and road margins.

Underscoring the need for decongestion, SP P.H.D. Ramakrishna said: “These demolitions together with a regulated hawkers’ movement will solve a major part of the existing congestion. Autorickshaws’ movement is also being regulated by disallowing those from rural pockets from entering the city.

Mr. Ramakrishna told The Hindu that joint teams of officials and staff from the police and municipal corporation were formed to carry out these decongestion activities and works in a systematic manner.

Three zones

With regard to the hawkers, it has been decided to divide the city’s shopping areas into red, green and orange zones.

The main shopping areas like Gandhibomma centre and VRC Centre may come under red category where no hawkers will be allowed.

The residential areas in the vicinity of shopping hubs are considered for green zone where hawkers would be allowed.

In the orange zone areas, hawkers may be allowed if they get permissions from the authorities concerned.