Bhubaneswar Municipality Corporation workers demolish the illegal extension in front of a shopping mall at Bidyut Marg. Pictures by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, May 27: Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) authorities today demolished an extended portion of a prominent shopping mall of the capital for obstructing a drain near Bidyut Marg. The road connects Governor House Square with Jayadev Vihar.

The drain was meant to carry the run-off from areas such as Kalinga Stadium and parts of Behera Sahi, but the owners of the mall had blocked the flow of the drain by constructing a ramp in front of it.

The demolition was required as the engineering section of the BMC was ready with a plan for the construction of a drain at a cost of Rs 32 lakh to connect the areas near Ereka Club near the Kalinga Stadium Square with the natural drainage channel No. 10, which passes by the shopping mall.

“The requisition for eviction was given by our engineers as construction of the drain was impossible with the concrete ramp in front of the mall. The mall authorities had not only blocked the space completely, they had also connected cement pipes underneath to carry out their wastewater to the nearby drainage channel. Such was the nature of violation of civic norms that the owner of a nearby furniture shop had constructed a toilet and connected its exit pipe with the cement pipe underneath the concrete ramp. For these encroachers, the drainage outlet was completely blocked,’’ said BMC’s recovery officer Sunita Behera.

Councillor of ward No. 25 Nabakishore Behera said: “The natural drainage channel No. 10, which is shown in the comprehensive development plan as a 10-metre wide water body, has been reduced to less than four-metre at places. But obstruction of the portion of one of its tributaries near Ereka Club was creating serious problems during rain. The demolition of the concrete ramp in front of the mall will facilitate engineers to connect the catchment area of the drain with the natural drainage channel No. 10.’’

Dhananjay Kund, a social worker, said: “The BMC should be congratulated on the demolition of illegal construction. But we know that many such malls in the city have already violated the Orissa Development Authorities Act, 1982. Some of these shopping malls have been constructed with commercial motives in residential areas, but the BDA authorities are not taking any steps against them. The BDA should act now as a joint team along with the BMC.’’

Manas Kumar Das, a retired employee of the Central Reserve Police Force, said the civic authorities could change the cityscape by carrying out more such illegal structure demolition drives and by warning the violators that the law of the land would raze the unauthorised structures.

Former housing and urban development minister Badrinarayan Patra had told the Assembly in April that three of the prominent shopping malls in the city might be demolished as they had come up without ensuring parking spaces near their structures.

A BMC official, on condition of anonymity, said: “For the last five years, BDA officials have been doing nothing to check violations of norms by the owners of a shopping mall in Nayapalli. Had the BDA people taken strict action from the beginning, there would not have been such blatant violations of civic norms in the area.”