Coimbatore: The city corporation is facing an acute manpower shortage, which is hindering measures to recover encroached open space reservation (
OSR
) lands, commissioner
Raja Gopal
Sunkara said on Tuesday.
“An assistant town planning officer, is in charge of the five zones in the city, is struggling to carry out various works. I have written to senior officials, highlighting the staff shortage,” Sunkara said. “We tried to manage the situation with the help of assistant engineers and junior engineers, but it did not succeed. It is not possible for the engineers to work with the town planning section as they are busy with other works. We will be able to check
encroachments
only if we have more staff in the town planning section.”
An official in the town planning section said that they are busy checking files on building approval, visiting construction sites to ensure that owners adhere to the proposed plan and taking action against the buildings constructed in violation. “We try to focus on encroachment in the spare time and cleared encroachments in 10 places in the last few months,” he said.
According to activists, the civic body should remove 100 encroachments across the city. “They should also focus on court cases relating to encroachments and bring them to an end,” an activist said.
Stay updated with the latest news on Times of India. Don't miss daily games like Crossword, Sudoku, and Mini Crossword.