Batala, July 25
The dilapidated condition of roads and encroachments have turned a big contributing factor in registering a negative growth rate of the industrial city.

The problem has become all the more pronounced in the labyrinthine by-lanes of the town where encroachments by roadside vendors are rampant, forcing commuters to take long detours. Moreover, various agencies engaged in the construction of new roads and re-carpeting of old ones do not have any eye-to-eye contact with each other giving a torrid time to commuters.

The responsibility of maintaining roads within the city lies with the local Municipal Committee (MC). Sources revealed that tenders for the construction of roads have to be passed by the General House of the MC. However, owing to political compulsions, the House has not been convened even once in the past 18 months. MC president Jatinder Kalyan, who was posted as the MC Chief on the orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in April, admits that the work is definitely suffering in the absence of House meetings. Kalyan, who was a BJP councillor before the party discarded him on disciplinary grounds, claimed that the Deputy Commissioner (DC) was empowered to call tenders under a particular section of the MC Act but in this case, keeping in view the volatile political situation following a rift between the Batala units of the SAD and the BJP, the authorities have not yet taken recourse to using the act.

Shopkeepers, a majority of whom are BJP voters, have illegally occupied 10 to 20 feet of space on either side of the roads. To compound matters, unauthorised handcarts can be seen weaving their way through the maze of roads giving locals a tough time. These shopkeepers often keep tables on the roads and pavements to sell their wares which act as a hindrance in the smooth flow of traffic. Harmanjit Singh Goraya, a businessman, disclosed, "The MC authorities have made tall claims about removing these illegal structures, but at the end of the day all their well laid out plans hit a road block because most of these encroachers are aligned to some political leader or the other. The worst-affected areas are City road, Gandhi chowk, Jalandhar road, Amritsar road, Cinema road and Kahnuwan road."

"The moment we confiscate goods of shopkeepers, we start receiving calls from politicians. Just see what is happening on the city road. People have encroached upon the road in such a way that only half the width of the road can been used by the commuters. This often leads to road rage," admitted a senior MC official.

It is a double whammy for the residents. If the politically motivated encroachments are proving to be bane for people, the pitiable condition of roads means that industrial output of suffering leaving residents fuming with anger at the apathy of the administrators.