Road widening to help resolve long standing bottleneck on busy Haridwar Road
Sunday, 29 January 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Encroachments by commercial and other establishments on the road at Jogiwala Chowk were finally demolished by the authorities amidst police presence on Saturday morning to make way for the planned widening of the busy intersection. As JCBs went into action, some of the shopkeepers protested against the demolition but police personnel present on the site kept the situation under control. However, the demolition of encroachments on the busy road resulted in considerable traffic congestion on nearby stretches of the road and on connecting routes. The police implemented route diversons in order to mitigate the traffic congestion. About 40 encroachments identified by the authorities were demolished on Saturday.
It is pertinent to mention here that even after construction of the Mohkampur flyover, traffic on the Haridwar Road continued to suffer from congestion at the Jogiwala Chowk bottleneck with the road narrowed down considerably due to encroachments on both the sides at and near the intersection. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the district administration had conducted a joint survey recently. The survey had ascertained that four metres of the road within a range of 150 metres in the Jogiwala Chowk area had been encroached upon by various buildings including shops and even the Jogiwala police post. The administration decided to demolish the encroachments as part of the widening project. The administration had informed all encroachers more than 10 days ago to remove their encroachments by January 26 failing which the authorities would remove them on January 28. On being given an opportunity, owners of various establishments presented documents to the authorities to claim ownership of the land they were occupying but after checking the documents and conducting measurements on site, these claims were found to be incorrect. Officials state that though owners of many commercial establishments near the Jogiwala Chowk have also been demanding compensation, there is no provision to pay compensation for encroachment on government land.
