Dedicated anti-encroachment squad: nod in final stage

Municipal Commissioner Mahesh Phatak said the government is in the final stage of clearing the proposal. “This will give us additional staff and police personnel and a court to handle matters in a streamlined manner. We are bound to get an additional staff of 250 for the purpose. A dedicated police station is in the pipeline,’’ Phatak told The Indian Express.

The PMC is to bear the additional expenditure. The commissioner said a detailed plan has been chalked out to implement the plan.

The proposal involves a corpus of Rs 9 crore. “The UDD has give us the green signal. For the police stations and courts,the judiciary department is yet to speed up the process,’’ said Phatak.

As of now,the Building Permission department,the anti-encroachment department and the nuisance detection squad work in tandem with police to clear encroached places.

Additional city engineer Vivek Kharwadkar said a drive has also been on to clear encroachments by hawkers ahead of Diwali and the municipal corporation has managed to clear approximately one lakh square feet. “The drives will continue,’’ he said.

With the work being decentralised,every ward has been asked to provide a list of areas with encroachments and action taken along with police.

“A separate squad will definitely help us,’’ added Kharwadkar.

Earlier,former municipal commissioner Mahesh Zagade had put forth the plan and sought government nod for a corpus of Rs 9 crore.

The plan has been pending for the last two years. The PMC had also put up a requirement of 677 posts and each department has to clear the positions. The issue gained importance after the German Bakery blast. It came to light that the bakery had encroached some land and the city administration arrived at the conclusion that a dedicated force was needed to curb encroachments.