A bulldozer demolishes a temple for road expansion in Kendrapara. Telegraph picture

Kendrapara, April 17: Over a dozen roadside temples were bulldozed to facilitate widening of congested roads in a drive in this district headquarters township that was by and large free from any kinds of protest.

“The administration undertook the drive to demolish the unauthorised constructions that came up in public places. The demolition drive would cover all the nine blocks in the district in a phased manner. At present, the drive was being carried out in the district headquarters town,” said Kendrapara collector Pradipta Kishore Pattnaik.

In the first phase, religious structures that have sprouted along the Cuttack-Paradip State Highway are being knocked down. Over a dozen such structures have so far been demolished. The exercise has remained entirely peaceful and there has been no public protest or resistance as it was anticipated.

However, armed police forces were deployed to prevent possible breach of law and order as a precautionary measure, said the district collector. The Cuttack-Paradip State Highway is being converted to a double-lane facility in a World Bank-funded project keeping in view the growth in vehicular traffic in the region. The places of worship, built along the roadside in an unauthorised manner, posed hindrance to expansion of the state highway.

An official of the district administration said they were abiding by the Supreme Court directions that had called for demolition of places of worship from public places. On September 29, 2009, the Supreme Court had ordered that no “unauthorised construction shall be carried out or permitted in the names of temple, church, mosque or Gurudwara etc. on public streets or public parks or other public places”.

“The district administration is doing something good keeping in mind the future needs of the locality. Building up places of worship on encroached government land causing inconvenience to the commuters has become the order of the day. This practice should end,” said Tara Shankar Routray, a local resident.

Local tehsildar Jyoti Shankar Mohapatra said: “The local people have extended full co-operation to make the drive a success. The managing authorities of the temples also did not offer any resistance.”