Chennai

According to a civic body engineer, the eviction and demolition drive was carried out after receiving several complaints from the public. Around 50 shops, mostly flower shops, from North Mada Street, South Mada Street and East Mada Street.

“Each of the streets are originally 30-foot wide, but encroachments have turned them narrow. With so many shops on the streets, it was difficult to drive even a two-wheeler freely on the street. Most of the demolished shops have been functioning here for more than 15 years,” the engineer said.

Shop owners opposed the move and demanded time to shift their shops but the officials removed the encroachments using earth movers claiming that the shops were causing inconvenience to devotees visiting the temple.

Despite opposition, the officials carried out the drive successfully with the help of the police. They, however, left out some shops whose owners have litigations pending in the High Court against the Chennai Corporation.

Meanwhile, on November 19, the civic body had evicted two temples that were encroaching the pedestrian pavement on Anna Main Road in KK Nagar.

Meanwhile, a senior Chennai Corporation official said that demolition drives would continue in the city to remove encroachments from pavements. “Once the vending zones are demarcated, no shops will be allowed to function on pavements,” he added.

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