Encroachments create traffic mess

SAMBALPUR: With growing urbanisation, encroachments by shopkeepers and roadside vendors have resulted in a traffic mess at various parts of the city. The rampant encroachment along the busy roads has also become another hurdle for  Sambalpur Municipal Corporation’s (SMC) beautification drive.

Ever since the construction of the longest fly over from Dhutrapada to Nelson Mandela Chowk has started, the roadside vendors along the route have scattered at different locations and many have clustered in large groups along the busy streets. Several roadside vendors are also putting up stalls during day time in front of the District Headquarters Hospital (DHH) near Pani Tanki Road.

Though the road is usually found congested during peak hours, these vendors are drawing more crowd thereby hampering the parking space for the people who come to the diagnostic labs, nursing homes and medicine stores near the DHH. As the road from Dhutrapada remains closed most of the time for work on fly over, vehicular movement on the route is getting diverted to the hospital adding to traffic congestion.
Some vendors even opened their stalls below the under-construction bridge putting their and customers’ lives at risk. The place is prone to accidents as the bridge work is going on for long hours throughout the day.

Earlier, the civic body had attempted to evict the vendors along Ainthapali-Budharaja Road but to no avail. Now, the administration seems to have given up on the plan to rehabilitate vegetable vendors. More than 200 vegetable, fruit and food vendors are operating their business along the road. Most of them are neither registered nor restricted by any law. The only feasible solution is to identify ideal and accessible locations for setting up vending zones to rehabilitate them, the locals said.

Though Bhima Bhoi vending zone was set up over of 4,500 sq m to house 200 vendors, it is lying deserted for the last two years.The SMC officials assured that a new plan will be developed soon after completion of bridge construction.