MC removes 800 illegal slums from green belt

LUDHIANA: Taking stern action against encroachments on green belt situated alongside old GT road from Sherpur chowk till Dhandari bridge, Municipal Corporation (MC) organised an anti- encroachment drive and removed around 800 slums on Monday.
The drive to remove the slums started at around noon and continued till evening in the presence of duty magistrate Pardeep Kumar and local police.
Working on the directions of MC Commissioner Dr Shena Aggarwal, the tehbazaari teams from all the four zones of MC were involved in the drive.
MC Superintendents Rajeev Bhardwaj and Sanjeev Uppal stated that the drive was organised to free the green belt area from encroachments. Senior officials, including Zonal Commissioner Sonam Chaudhary and Joint Commissioner Kulpreet Singh were regularly monitoring the situation.
Tehbazaari wing teams led by inspectors Sunil, Ajay, Sanjeet and Lakhwinder Lucky were involved in the drive. Superintendent Bhardwaj stated that the encroachments were removed from over 2 kms long stretch of green belt area, which was occupied by slum dwellers. Some of them had also established concrete structures at the site, which have also been removed by the MC teams.
The civic body had earlier urged the slum dwellers to remove encroachments and announcements were also made in this regard. But they failed to shift from the site, due to which anti-encroachment drive was organised on Monday and over 800 slums were removed with the help of JCBs, said Bhardwaj, while adding that the report regarding the drive is being submitted with the higher authorities.