Aurangabad municipal corporation demolishes 15 properties in a day to widen road

AURANGABAD: Even though the civic body began its drive to widen the stretch from Sansthan Ganapati to Jinsi road as per the city’s development plan and demolished 15 properties on Saturday, it could not carry forward the drive, as many affected property owners raised objections over the markings made by the civic authorities.
About 50-60 property owners strongly opposed the drive saying that the municipal authorities have wrongly marked their properties.The civic body had to demolish households and shops to pave the way for a 15 meter wide road in place of the existing 5 meter stretch. To facilitate widening of the road, the municipal authorities recently put markings on the properties present on both the sides of the road considering the centre of the existing road as the mid-point.
However, property owners rue that the point of reference is not justified. “To favour influential persons, the authorities are manipulating it and twisting it as per their convenience,” said one of the property owners.
Meanwhile, the municipal authorities resumed marking properties on Saturday. “To maintain transparency in the system, we have started marking the properties once again,” said Ravindra Nikam, deputy municipal commissioner.
However, Nikam refused to accept that there was resistance from the property owners. “On the contrary, many property owners are removing affected portion of the property on their own. Anyways, we are going to clear the properties within next three to four days,” he said.
Earlier, amid tight police bandobast, the authorities removed extended shades of some shops and households.