Thirteen commercial shops situated close to the sea near the Swargadwar area under the sea beach police station limits were demolished by the civic administration on Monday. The Puri Konark Development Authority (PKDA) in 2002 had declared these structures as violation of the CRZ norms and asked the municipality authorities to demolish it. In the wake of in-fight between the district, municipal and PKDA administrations, demolition could not be carried out.
The administration woke up from deep slumber following National Green Tribunal (NGT) direction to the State Government and the district administration to remove all CRZ violating structures at the earliest. Since the State was to appear in the tribunal soon, the administration demolished these structures. The tribunal passed orders while considering a petition of one Subash Chandra Dutta who pointed out large scale pollution in the beach and mushrooming up of encroachments and construction of commercial buildings violating the CRZ norms. The civic body executive officer Manish Agarwal, enforcement officer Abhimanyu Behera and sea beach police inspector PC Sahoo led the demolition squad.