Despite Dehradun city magistrate lalit Narayan Mishra having claimed to have taken measures to free footpaths by conducting anti- encroachment drives from time to time across the city, the pedestrians continue to face inconveniences with the footpaths remaining under the sway of the encroachers. What is found along Subhash Road near the State Secretariat tells the same story of a large swathe of the footpaths being used by the vehicle-users to have their vehicles parked.
The footpaths being encumbered thus, the pedestrians are being forced to walk right on the roads, risking their lives. “Police deployed outside the Secretariat is hardly found removing such encroachments that are clogging the stretch of Subhash Road from the Secretariat via Police Headquarters to St Joseph Academy. Things being so, we walk precariously with our lives remaining at the mercy of those sitting behind the wheels of their vehicles. With the number of cars and two-wheelers spiraling by leaps and bounds, one can imagine how things are for us, the hapless pedestrians who have no other option but to walk our way to reach destinations,” said Vijay Bhatt, a resident of Rajpur.
Suman Bisht, a college student, said that there is nothing like footpath along DAV (PG) College Road. “We walk under fright of being run over by the speeding vehicles. Our predicament worsens as the hawkers encroach the stretch and do their trades right on what is meant to be pedestrians’ way with impunity. The authorities cannot perhaps care less as we face the danger to our lives daily while going to the college and returning home from it,” he said.
On EC Road, from Naini Bakri, footpaths are being used for commercial purposes. “Who would we turn to have things solved with the authority, mandated to stop such things, either sleeping or, wide awake, conniving with the encroachers for easy bucksIJ” asked Kusum Singh, resident of Karanpur. City Magistrate Mishra acknowledged that the footpaths have been encroached upon by the local residents engaged in extending their houses unlawfully.
“The hawkers are doing the same, leaving no space for the pedestrians to walk freely. Besides, such space being used for parking cars and two-wheelers is dangerously compounding things for them,” he said. To ease things, he said, they often conduct raids in conjunction with the Municipal Corporation. “But things go back to the square one once the law- enforcers and the civic body officials put their backs on the roads. The encroachers emerge and the pedestrians’ woes continue,” said a resident of Dalanwala.