Bhubaneswar, May 8: Picture this: The Beatles crossing Ram Mandir Square in Bhubaneswar instead of Abbey Road in London!

Well, The Fab Four from Liverpool would have struggled, to say the least, with pedestrian discipline on city roads largely becoming a misnomer.

As the world is celebrating international pedestrian safety week (May 6 to 12), a glance of the city roads tells a different story. While pedestrians feel unsafe due to footpaths encroached by vendors and missing zebra crossings, blinked out traffic lights are putting the lives of thousands of commuters at risk.

Concerned over “the misuse of the footpaths” along major roads, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation is now planning to conduct a drive to free them from encroachment.

Municipal commissioner Sanjib Kumar Mishra said: “It is a fact that in many stretches, footpaths are not yet complete. But, at places where there are excellent footpaths and cycle tracks, people do not use them.”

Blocking footpaths, parking spaces or roads is an offence under the provisions of the Odisha Municipal Corporation Act, 2003, and the violators can face strict action from the licensing section.

Mrutyunjay Tripathy, a resident of Soubhagya Nagar (Phase-II), said: “Vendors dealing with building materials are also using the footpaths and part of the main roads to store sand and chips and sell them. The civic authorities should keep a tab on them.”

In 2011, the housing and urban development department, in association with a Philippines-based organisation, conducted a study in which it was found that from among six Indian cities, Bhubaneswar had scored 50 out of 100 points in having the pedestrian infrastructure leaving behind cities such as Chennai, Surat and Indore. The report was published in May 2012.

“While the city has scored good points with its pedestrian infrastructure, there is a need to keep them accessible for the public. We have wide roads with footpaths, but most of them are used for parking,” said Prabir Das, an advocate of Saheed Nagar.

“We have been enforcing the traffic rules regarding zebra crossings. We fine people, who touch the zebra crossings while waiting at a traffic square. Due to lack of manpower, we are not able to enforce this rule at every square, but this should go on at major traffic squares,” said assistant commissioner of police Binod Das, adding that at places with missing zebra crossings traffic officials would talk to the works department officials to draw the lines.