The road in Acharya Vihar that gets flooded every monsoon. Pictures by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, April 2: The Acharya Vihar Parishad has urged both the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) to expedite the process for construction of diversion on drainage channel No. 4 as Orissa High Court had vacated the stay on March 12.

The diversion programme is part of BDA’s comprehensive development plan. The plan gives a detailed development aspect of the city’s roads and drainage channels.

Parishad secretary Bhagabat Prasad Das said 59 local residents fought for eight years to get a favourable verdict against the plea of 13 others, who were opposed to the channel diversion plan.

Das said immediate action was required to remove the encroachment else people would be forced to suffer the man-made floods during monsoon.

The impact of the flood is such that there had been instances of two-wheelers and four-wheelers getting washed away by the swirling waters.

As the current passage of the channel is narrow and the water passes near an existing road overflowing the entire locality, the BDA in association with the BMC and the general administration departmenthad developed the diversion plan for the channel so that water could easily get discharged during the rains.

However, 13 residents and encroachers had moved the court in 2006 and work got stuck.

“As the high court has vacated the stay, the civic and the planning authorities should immediately remove the encroachment so that the drainage division can start and complete the diversion work before the rainy season this year,’’ Das demanded.

BMC additional commissioner Krushna Prasad Pati said: “As a majority of the officials and the police force are deployed on election duty, the eviction can start only after the polls are over.’’

However, Parishad representatives argued that as it was an existing problem the matter should not come under the purview of the model code of conduct.

A BDA official said that they, along with the BMC, were too eager to execute the plan but work would start only after the polls.

“Former vice-charman Vishal Kumar Dev took special interest and had written a letter to the advocate general so that the stay could be vacated. It showed the seriousness of the BDA regarding the problem faced by the residents of Acharya Vihar,’’ said a BDA official.

Pati, however, informed that considering the seriousness of the problem, if needed, the BDA vice-chairman might approach the chief electoral officer to get a permission to start the eviction process.

The BDA enforcement officials, however, added that already a survey had begun to know the nature of encroachment near Acharya Vihar by their land section.