As part of its pan-Mumbai drive to rid the streets and footpaths of the city of illegal encroachments, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s B ward demolished up to 25 illegal shops on Mohammad Ali
As part of its pan-Mumbai drive to rid the streets and footpaths of the city of illegal encroachments, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s B ward demolished up to 25 illegal shops on Mohammad Ali Road on Saturday. BMC officials said that this has not only freed the footpath in the area, but has also cleared four bus stops, which were perpetually crowded due to the shops.
Uday Shirurkar, assistant municipal commissioner of the B ward said, “These makeshift shops were encroaching on the footpath and also around the bus stops. The crowd that would gather around the shops hampered traffic. If buses took longer to stop and leave the bus stop, it led to a general slowdown of the traffic around the area.”
The BMC expects that this action will bring considerable ease to the traffic entering and exiting Mohammad Ali Road, which is a very narrow lane, despite being an arterial road.
Meanwhile, another demolition of nine illegal shops took place at the M (East) ward’s Sonapur Road in the Deonar area on Saturday. The ward officials believe this would help ease the traffic on Sonapur Road considerably.
These demolition drives have followed municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta’s orders to all ward officials to demolish all encroachments on roads and footpaths across Mumbai. Previously, similar demolition action has been taken in the H (East) and H (West) wards, G (South) ward, K (East) ward and the M (East) ward.
Both demolitions were conducted with police protection and no untoward incident was reported during the demolition.
