BHUBANESWAR : Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s plan to get rid of abandoned vehicles and carts alongside roads and streets in the state capital remains only on paper.
Dozens of such unused vehicles, mostly four-wheelers, rotting along roads in Rasulgarh and Mancheswar, have become an eyesore and the root cause of multiple problems. Apart from spoiling the landscape, the vehicles have also become den for anti-socials during night. The vehicles covered in a thick layer of dust have also become breeding ground for mosquitoes, alleged some local traders.
To make matters worse, the vehicles are sometimes set afire by miscreants and such incidents pose high risk to shops, institutions as well as industrial units in the locality, alleged residents of Mancheswar. In fact, one such vehicle caught fire three days back posing risk for others parked nearby on Rasulgarh-Mancheswar road. As the vehicle kept burning right under a 11 KV electric pole during night, it multiplied the risk of a fire hazard, though fire officials on being informed rushed to the spot and doused the flame.
Despite such incidents, enforcement on part of the civic body remains inadequate. One-and-a-half years back, the civic body had come up with an SOP to paste notices on such vehicles asking their owners to pick them from the spot within a week. In the event of non-compliance, the civic body had warned that the vehicles will be auctioned off. There is also provision of action for such abandoning under Orissa Municipal Corporation Act 2023.
Though BMC has put up such notices on certain occasions, scores of such vehicles are lying abandoned in parts of the city, especially in Rasulgarh and Mancheswar industrial area. While BMC authorities could not be contacted, an official from the civic body said the drive to lift vehicles has been intensified from December. He said apart from placing notices on such vehicles, the civic body has started informing about the same to police to avoid legal issues in the event they are lifted from the spot.