Bhubaneswar, April 16: Bank employee Kishore Kumar Mishra had never imagined that a public drain would pass through his land.

Mishra has been living in his house near Damana since 2011. He had got the plan approval from the development authority in 2008, but only found out about the drain last year.

“According to the comprehensive development plan (CDP), the drain should pass through 25 per cent of my land. When I found out about this in July 2011, I visited the officials of the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA). Since then, I have been visiting every government office, including the drainage division and the general administration department. The officials of BDA have also been on a field verification, but nothing has been done so far,” said Mishra.

Mishra got an opportunity to air his grievances with the BDA officials today, thanks to an adalat (court) held by the BDA to address grievances of residents. Mishra was not the only one. More than 200 people aired their grievances before the adalat, which is the development authority held for the first time.

The grievances were mostly related to encroachment of roads and drains. The BDA authorities had decided to conduct such an open court to address grievances in a time bound manner. The development authority has received more than 220 applications over the past three days for the adalat.

Vice-chairman of the BDA Vishal Kumar Dev said negligence of officials often led to inordinate delay in addressing grievances, while this kind of open court could redress grievances in a time bound manner besides encouraging citizens to speak directly to the authorities.

“We plan to conduct such adalats once every three months,” said Dev..

Though the BDA has a grievance redress mechanism that works every Monday from 4pm to 5pm, it is common to find that the grievances have not been redressed properly because of the inefficiency of BDA officials. The development authority receives around 40 complaints every week, most of which are related to plan approval, housing project schemes and encroachment.

Dev said the development authority would emphasise on the zonal development plan (ZDP). “The city will be divided into 14 zones and unlike CDP, which plans development on a macro level, ZDP will take account of micro-level development,” said Dev.

Citizens welcomed the BDA’s decision to conduct such adalats. “This is a welcome move. But the authority must ensure that the ruling of such open courts is implemented within a stipulated time frame to make the initiative a successful one,” said Naba Moharana, a resident of Gajapati Nagar.