Nagpur Municipal Corporation seems to have woken up to the rampant commercial encroachment in plush residential areas and finally cracked down on two such eateries running from the residential apartment in Civil Lines. The officials of Dharampeth Zone had on Wednesday slapped show-cause notices to The Bawa Restaurant and Brown Sugar, another bakery beside it, and also razed the temporary sheds installed outside Bawa.
Junior Engineer of Dharampeth Zone Gajanan Warade told Nagpur Today that the owners of the Bawa eating joint were illegally operating the facility from a ground-floor flat in a residential premise. Warade added that according to Development Control Rules and Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning (MRTP) Act, one cannot run any commercial activity from any residential flat or even an independent house. Surprisingly, the residents of the locality too have raised objections over running the eating joint in the ground floor of the flat.
Similarly, Anup Uppal owner of Brown Sugar bakery has been given 15 days to produce the documents or the authorities of Nagpur Municipal Corporation will take suitable action and prevent functioning of bakery and cake shop in a residential flat.
Sources said that right from the time, the eating started operations, traffic jams in this residential locality became the frequent feature in this area. This was because the patrons of The Bawa parked their vehicles on the road since the eating joint has no designated parking place. At times it becomes very difficult to traverse through already narrow stretch from Jaika Motors to the Main Gate of VCA Stadium. Apart from this the honking of vehicles late at night contributes significantly to noise pollution.
On June 29, 2016 afternoon, the anti-encroachment squad reached the spot with a JCB and Police Personnel to raze illegal constructions. When the staff of The Bawa saw the NMC machinery, they themselves removed the illegal shed from front portion. The zone office removed encroachments from refuge areas by razing an illegal shed.
However, it appeared to be a half hearted work since the squad left the spot without removing encroachments from other open spaces, which were covered by both the establishments. When asked, the Junior Engineer claimed that both the authorities were given three days’ time to remove the illegal constructions themselves.
