Thanks to the poor approach of E.O. Municipality, Poonch City has become a jungle with encroachments everywhere; District administration is in slumber
POONCH TODAY NEWS
POONCH: The main responsibility of the municipality is to clean the city in addition to taking action against encroachments of any kind, but due to the poor approach of the E.O. Poonch Municipality, the city has become a jungle with encroachment at every place.
Right from the parade to Hathi Than Bazar, and then from the main market to the bus stand Poonch through Poonch Fort Market, encroachments have become a daily routine. The entire market has been captured at maximum places, but the E.O. Poonch Municipality seems to be in deep slumber. Just to hoodwink the people, a sanitation drive was started during Diwali day by the municipality. The same approach was visible when the municipality had its elected body, and during those times also, no proper action against various types of illegal encroachments was executed on the ground because the then political committee focused on vision-less issues and did not want to face people’s anger. Due to the poor approach of the Poonch Municipality, the historic Poonch city has become a jungle. Although Poonch municipality officials are seen taking weak actions against encroachments by calling some YouTubers to befool the public that they have taken action, such types of actions used to take place once in a blue moon. The entire institution of the municipality has become a den of corrupt activities. If one analyzes the performance of Poonch municipality for the last six years, one can find that no concrete works for the beautification of Poonch city were carried out. There was a passenger shed in Bus Stand Poonch where some beggars and poor people used to live that was demolished, and in its palace, some shops have been constructed. Huge compromise had taken place in the allotment of shops as some self-styled social workers, relatives of those on chairs, and political leaders were given shops in violation of rules. In front of Poonch Fort to Bus Stand area, a large number of illegal Khokas have been constructed, but the visionless and tainted officials of Poonch Municipality never took action against those illegal Khokas. During the last few years, the municipality did not witness any visionary leaders to run its affairs smoothly with a creative thinker state of mind. As a result, due to various loopholes, the city has lost its sheen. The most shocking factor is that successive Deputy Commissioners also turned a blind eye on the issue of Poonch City turning into a garbage dumping site. Right now, the entire market has been encroached as there are a number of illegal khokhas constructed adjacent to the main road near Poonch fort, but no action from the Poonch Municipality to clean the area has shown that the system is on the mercy of God. The common man feels huge inconvenience during visits to various markets of the city due to huge encroachment of market space. The inner markets like the J&K Bank lane of the city are also facing a similar crisis where people are seen encroaching lane and other streets openly, thereby causing huge inconvenience to the people. It’s an alarming trend in the city. Moreover, a number of illegal structures at various places were allowed to be constructed in an open violation of rules. Municipality officials used to visit the sites and collect favors and then never come again. The entire Poonch Municipality, due to its visionless approach of the Executive Officer, has turned the elite department into an institution of corruption and horrible illegal practices. The silence of the Deputy Commissioner office is also adding fuel to the fire. The public of Poonch is suffering from this brazen menace of illegal encroachments of markets. It is high time that those responsible for running the affairs of the municipality rise from their deep slumber to start working in the public interest by conducting regular anti-encroachment drives. Are municipality officials collecting “Hafta” from shopkeepers for not taking anti-encroachment drives? These things need to be detected by the government in the public interest, feel civil society members.