GURUGRAM: The Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon sealed 80 shops in the Sadar Bazaar area today in a bid to make the city's one of the oldest markets encroachment-free.
MCG Commissioner Yashpal Yadav said the civic body's senior officials held several meetings with Sadar Bazaar market associations representatives and requested the shopkeepers to remove encroachment themselves from in front of there shops.
"The MCG officials also recorded the encroachment and marked the 80 shops where congestion was found in form of unnecessary vendors, street vendors. When the shopkeepers' representatives failed to make Sadar Bazaar encroachment-free, we have done anti-encroachment drive and sealed 80 shops," Yadav said.
He said during the exercise earth-movers were used to break ramps and sheds of some shops.
"We also took out vendors, carts and gave notices to 80 shops in the first phase of the anti-encroachment drive. Many times we have observed that in case of any calamity such as fire, the disaster management and rescue management teams faced a delay in reaching the spot on time due to encroachment, congestion as thousands of people visit Sadar Baazar on a daily basis", the officer added.
He said the anti-encroachment drive today would make the area easily accessible.
"Due to the anti-encroachment drive, now fire tenders can easily access the Sadar Baazar area in case of any emergency. There are hundreds of shops located within it. We will conduct such drives in future also. Some shopkeepers opposed our drive but we had no option," he added.