BHUBANESWAR: To pave way for the long-pending left parallel road (LPR) project aimed at decongesting traffic on the Jayadev Vihar-Nandankanan stretch, the state government on Tuesday launched a major eviction drive in Salia Sahi, capital’s largest slum, to demolish over 500 homes for the purpose.
Amid stiff protest from a section of slum-dwellers, local activists and political leaders, the joint enforcement team of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC), Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) and other line departments carried out the eviction drive in the morning in presence of over five platoons of police force.
Around 10 bulldozers and 50 other vehicles were engaged in carrying out the eviction drive. A minor scuffle also broke out between the protesters and the cops. However, no major law and order situation was reported, police said.
“It was primarily a relocation drive and remained smooth by and large. Around 80 families were relocated and 65 houses demolished on the first day to clear space for the parallel road project,” said BMC additional commissioner Kailash Chandra Das.
Sources said the BMC has identified around 550 houses in the slum for demolition to facilitate development of the road along 1-km stretch of Ekamra Kanan for the 13-km-long LPR spanning CRP square to Nandankanan. Officials in the civic body informed it will take three to four more days to carry out the eviction drive and relocate those who are yet to vacate their houses.
The Corporation had earlier said that about 274 families had been provisionally identified for rehabilitation, while the rest were on encroached land.
Meanwhile, members of some households who opposed the eviction drive alleged they were not given enough time to vacate the space. Some others claimed the government was evicting them without considering their grievance of being provided accommodation on a minimum 600 sq ft area. There were some who also alleged that the site was forest land and the eviction was being carried out without complying with the provisions of the Forest Rights Act.
The CPI (M) Odisha state committee has demanded that the government ensure proper rehabilitation of all before carrying out the eviction drive. CPI (M) state committee secretary Suresh Chandra Panigrahy alleged that the BJP government was bulldozing huts of about 556 Adivasi and non-Adivasi working-class families in Salia Sahi and threatened that it will launch a statewide demonstration over it soon.
Panigrahy further pointed out that Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi had herself promised 600 sq ft land for each family in the slum during their rehabilitation.