Cuttack, May 3: Dispute over location has delayed the municipal corporation's schedule for the Rs 20-lakh vending zone project near the SCB Medical College and Hospital by more than three years.

The project is essential to ease traffic congestion on the road that runs in front of the state-run hospital. The presence of a large number of roadside vendors is among the main reasons behind congestion on the stretch.

The civic body has already missed the six-week deadline fixed by the high court in September last year and construction on the project has hardly made any headway.

However, municipal commissioner Gyana Das told The Telegraph: "The process for construction of the shops under the vending zone project has already started. We plan to make it operational by the end of May."

Initially, the civic body had constructed 80 shops over the drain and road along the hospital's boundary wall as part of the project in 2012.

But Orissa High Court ruled them as "unauthorised constructions" and directed the corporation to remove them after the court-appointed traffic management committee raised objections on grounds of feasibility.

Subsequently, on September 23 last year, the high court had directed the Cuttack Municipal Corporation to construct the vending zone within six weeks at the site recommended by the committee in its feasibility report.

The report had ruled out any vending zone beside the compound wall of SCB Medical College and Hospital starting from Manglabag Chhak to Acharya Harihar Regional Cancer Centre and recommended utilisation of the space available after that stretch till Bhubananda Odisha School of Engineering for the vending zone.

Head of the civic body's standing committee for contracts, licence & appeal Bikash Ranjan Behera said: "We are constructing 48 shops as part of the project at the recommended stretch near the hospital at a cost of Rs 20 lakh. Steps are being taken to make them operational within a month."

"We have already received applications for the shops, which will be distributed by lottery. Each of the shops will be let out on a monthly rent of Rs 700," he said.