The Hindu

Mangalore, Mar 7: A majority of traders in front of the State Bank of India bus-stand here removed illegal structures raised by them by Friday, even as the district administration and the Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) had taken a firm stand of initiating action against them.

Deputy Commissioner and District Magistrate V. Ponnuraj and the Commissioner of the city corporation Sameer Shukla visited about 100 shops in the two streets in front of State Bank of India, popularly called the Maidan Market, on Friday afternoon. Some traders were removing the structures while a few others were yet to start. The MCC officials had marked the encroachments early this week.

Mr. Ponnuraj cautioned the traders that the corporation workers would pull down whatever encroachments that might not have been remove by Saturday. “Time will not be extended beyond Saturday,” he said.

The traders had begun removing the encroachments a week ago when the corporation workers pulled down some encroachments outside the central market building, under instructions from Mr. Ponnuraj. Mr. Shukla told The Hindu that the corporation would wait till Saturday evening for traders to remove illegal structures voluntarily. “If they do not do so by then, we will pull them down,” he said and added that some traders had encroached the footpath up to two metres.

Mr. Ponnuraj, during his visit to the Maidan dMarket on Friday, warned the footpath vendors against occupying the space there. The officials would book cases against them if they were seen on the footpaths from Saturday, he said.

Deputy Commissioner Mr. Ponnuraj said that when there was a central market building nearby, the administration could not allow them to sell vegetables and fruits on footpaths. They could carry on with their business inside the central market building, he said.

When the footpath vendors requested Mr. Ponnuraj to allow them to conduct their business there, he said that they could go for push-carts or get inside the market building to carry on with their business. Mr. Shukla told The Hindu that the corporation would next remove illegal encroachments by scrap traders on Bibi Alabi Road and its parallel roads.