This story is from February 22, 2020

Removed 93/121 illegal shrines: NMC informs HC

Removed 93/121 illegal shrines: NMC informs HC
Nagpur: Responding to the judiciary’s directives on removing city’s illegal religious structures, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) informed that it had demolished 93 out of 121, which were identified by the District Level Committee and placed in ‘B’ category.
A division bench comprising justices Ravi Deshpande and Amit Borkar then adjourned the hearing a plea (WP No 6177/2006) till next week.
It was filed by social workers Dr Gajanan Zade and Manohar Khorgade through counsel Firdos Mirza, praying for removal of encroachments, including religious structures, pandals, stages, statues and others from roads, pavements and public utility places.
In an affidavit filed in the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court as per its directives of January 29, the civic body informed that remaining 19/121 structures came under the jurisdiction of different authorities like Nagpur Improvement trust (NIT), South-Eastern Central Railway (SECR), Central Railway (CR) and Nazul among others. “Those structures should be removed by respective authorities. In nine other cases, stay is granted by HC and it’s in operation as on today,” the NMC said, adding that it had complied with the HC’s directives.
The NIT also submitted its affidavit as per the HC directives stating that 25 such unauthorized religious structures standing on public land came under its jurisdiction. “We’ve already demolished all such structures on roads, pavements, footpath along with those on the public land and open spaces, as identified by the NMC’s committee. We’ve also removed the debris left after the demolition of those structures from time to time,” NIT said.
NIT informed that State Urban Development Department had issued a notification on August 27, 2019, through which its seven schemes were transferred to NMC.
Earlier, the NMC informed that Laxmi Nagar Zone has 24 unauthorized structures of which 21 were razed and the debris was removed. One came under NIT’s jurisdiction while HC had granted a stay in two other cases. In Dharampeth Zone, 52 such structures were identified and of them 48 were removed while four received stay from the HC.
About 14 such structures fall under the Mangalwari Zone of which four were removed. Out of remaining 10, there is HC stay in one case while nine are under Indian Railway’s jurisdiction. The NMC had already informed the railways and also offered required machinery to remove them. In Hanuman Nagar Zone, out of eight such structures, six were razed in remaining two cases there is a court stay.
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