PUDA axe falls on village structures

S.A.S. NAGAR, Dec 15: The anti-encroachment drive by a team of the Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority (PUDA) met with resistance today as some residents of Behlolpur villager, including women and children, lay down on the road and gheroaed the official vehicles as soon as an illegal construction was razed to the ground.

The PUDA drive, in which a posse of Punjab Police personnel also took part, started at 11 a.m. from Behlolpur and continued till late in the evening in four nearby villages — Belongi, Sahaura, Suwara and Sohana — located

near Dara Studio. The drive went off peacefully in these villages. PUDA General Manager (Regulatory) Hardev Singh, who supervised the drive, claimed that all upcoming constructions were removed during the drive undertaken in the five villages simultaneously. He said the drive will continue in Pabhat, Zirakpur, Dakoli and Bartana where fresh constructions are coming up unabated. The drive against fresh constructions in the peripheral areas began on Friday and about a 100-odd fresh constructions have so far been removed.

Meanwhile, the Additional Chief Administrator, PUDA, Seema Jain, also visited some villages to acquaint the residents with the Punjab government’s porposed move of regularising built houses.