Cuttack, July 18: The Bada Danda (Grand Road) in Puri will be a no-vending zone to ensure that the 2.5km stretch of the National Highway from the Jagannath temple to Gundicha remains clean, safe and has smooth traffic movement.

The Puri municipality has given an undertaking in Orissa High Court that no vending zone would be established and no licence would be granted for opening of shops on the Bada Danda.

The undertaking given during the adjudication of a PIL assumes significance as the civic body has been allowing vending activities and collecting licence fees from vendors, including traders and service providers, on this stretch of the national highway.

The Puri Municipality had on May 13 issued a tender notice, inviting applications for rehabilitation of business units by establishing a vending zone on both sides of the Bada Danda. Another tender notice issued on June 21, had invited applications for allotment of cabins on the Bada Danda. But, Jitendra Kumar Sahoo, claiming to be a public spirited person, filed a PIL seeking immediate quashing of the two tenders.

When the petition was taken up by the court recently, the petitioner's counsel, Prafulla Kumar Rath, contended that the Puri municipality had no authority to issue tenders and grant temporary licence for carrying out commercial activities on Bada Danda as it has been declared National Highway 203 by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). The tender notices violate the provisions of the National Highway Act, 1956.

Advocate-general Surya Prasad Mishra said Bada Danda is to be used as a thoroughfare and no commercial establishments can come up its sides.

Subsequently, on instruction from the Puri Municipality, counsel P.K. Mohanty gave an undertaking that the municipal authority would not construct a vending zone or grant any temporary licence near the Bada Danda.

"In view of the aforesaid undertaking, since the municipal authorities are not going to have a vending zone or grant licence either permanent or temporary, for construction of any commercial units on Bada Danda, which has been declared a national highway, this court is of the considered view that the undertaking so given shall be given effect to," the division bench of Chief Justice Vineet Saran and Justice B.R. Sarangi had said in its June 30 order.

According to records presented in the court, the NHAI declared the Bada Danda as National Highway 203 on July 22, 2002, after the Puri roads and buildings division of the state government handed over the 2.5km stretch of Bada Danda from Singhadwar of the Jagannath temple to Gundicha Temple (with widths varying from 39 metres to 41 metres) to the NHAI, Bhubaneswar, on April 17, 2002.

Taking note of the NHAI records, the court held that the municipality could not issue tenders for construction of a vending zone on the earmarked area of the National Highway.