Ranchi: Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) on Monday kicked off a drive to demolish all illegal cowsheds built on government land that are also causing pollution through improper waste disposal.

The drive was started from Vidyanagar in Harmu locality where the RMC enforcement team removed as many as 20 cowsheds set up by local cattle rearers decades back by encroaching land close to Harmu river.

RMC city manger Ambuj Singh along with 60 home guard jawans and 15 enforcement staff arrived at Vidyanagar around 9.45am and showed the demolition notice to cattle owners.

"As many as 17 people who run cowsheds were earlier served notices to relocate their structures. They are not only encroaching upon the river but also causing pollution by discharging cow dung and urine into it. In the past, the RMC had asked them to avail its facilities to transport and deposit the waste at some other place but they couldn't care less," an RMC official said.

The RMC enforcement team will conduct the crackdown at Ganganagar on Tuesday and at Karam Chowk on Wednesday. Illegal encroachments will be removed in the area surrounding Harmu Muktidham bridge.

Similar drives will also be conducted near Tapovan Temple at Niwaranpur, Amrawati Colony and Rishaldar Nagar in Doranda this week, RMC sources said.

"We are also trying to address all related complaints lodged by individuals at Mukhyamantri Jan Samvad Kendra and public portal of urban development minister C.P. Singh. The RMC has also decided to confiscate cow and buffaloes kept at the illegal cowsheds," an RMC official said.

The crackdown follows two letters shot by the Jharkhand Urban Infrastructure Development Company (JUIDCO) to the civic body on December 4 and December 29 last year.

JUIDCO, which has undertaken the Harmu river rejuvenation project, had expressed concern over illegal cowsheds contributing to river pollution.