BMC’s demolition squad pulls down an Omfed booth near Gopabandhu Square in Bhubaneswar on Thursday. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Dec. 9: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to scrutinise the status of every Odisha State Cooperative Milk Producers’ Federation Limited (Omfed), Odisha State Poultry Products Cooperative Marketing Federation Limited (Opolfed) and public call office (PCO) booth in the city.

If the authorities detect anything illegal with respect to their area of operation and other aspects, immediate action will be taken.

Talking to The Telegraph today, municipal commissioner Vishal Kumar Dev made it clear violations such as multiple Omfed vending outlets with single permission or unauthorised extension of their areas by Omfed, Opolfed and PCO booths would be dealt with strictly.

The BMC may even demolish such structures. Referring to the claims of the some of the booth owners and their protest at the mayor’s residence yesterday, the commissioner said that at Sriya Square a person had opened five Omfed booths though he had permission for only one. Similarly, many Omfed booths were operating without licence.

A senior BMC official added that while the inspection squads of the civic body have discovered Opolfed booths selling goat meat and liquor, Omfed booths have been found selling tobacco products and many PCOs have turned into variety stores.

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena, said: “The BMC officials noticed the violations of locations when they found out that while permission was granted to a booth owner in Unit-IX, the person opened the booth in Unit-IV. As the locations of these booths were changed without any approval, many development issues keep arising when road expansion projects were taken up.”

The BMC allows an area of 64sqft for an Omfed booth and nearly 100sqft for an Opolfed one, but it is seen that the owners extend their kiosks beyond this and even make sitting arrangements for customers. Sometimes it also leads to traffic problems.

The BMC councillors also pointed out the presence of many fake Omfed and Opolfed booths in the city. They want the issue to be referred to the city management group.

President, Omfed-Opolfed joint action committee, Braja Patra, however, clarified that the then municipal commissioner Aparajita Sarangi on November 6, 2008, had convened a meeting and permitted the booth owners who were affected by road expansion projects to have alternate locations.

“We had a detailed discussion with the present commissioner and mayor yesterday and they had agreed to honour the previous decision. However, the BMC has every right to act on illegal booth owners and those who have actually violated the specifications. Even the general administration department on August 13, 2008, had issued a circular not to issue permissions to booths on main roads and only on sub-lanes. But how so many booths have received permissions after that should also be looked into. But there should not be any restrictions on booths on sub-lanes and spots far away from traffic junctions,” said Patra.

Patra added that while the civic body had every right to take action against the violators, it should guard the interests of the genuine booth owners, who, for decades have been paying both trade licenses and other taxes in time to BMC. “The authorities should remember that all the families depend on the booths for their livelihood and sustenance,” he added.

Sources in the BMC said the civic body’s demolition squad razed five Omfed, two Opolfed and about 10 PCO booths in the last two days. Earlier, the city police had also objected to permissions given to booths near busy roads and traffic squares resulting in congestion.