Nagpur: The municipal corporation's enforcement wing worked through a holiday on Wednesday, bringing bulldozers to 12 illegal sheds at Bhilgaon on Kamptee Road.
Bhilgaon sits on the city's outer edge, where action is rare, and encroachments had spread from the footpaths onto the road margins. The sudden arrival of the squad set off a scramble among those occupying the sites, and demolition began immediately.
The drive cleared illegal carts, shops and structures on the roads and footpaths, then moved from the Pili river area up to Civil Lines. About two truckloads of material were seized, including eight handcarts.
The operation was carried out on the orders of the city's Commissioner of Police and the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic), the civic body said. Other anti-encroachment squads joined a combined drive on Birdi Main Road.
In the Mahal area, teams cleared both sides of the road from Mahal Chowk to Badkas Chowk, covering the Gadkari Wada complex and the Kalyaneshwar temple precinct. Deputy Commissioner (Enforcement) Mangesh Khavale and in-charge Assistant Commissioner Sanjay Kamble supervised the teams.
The corporation says encroachments on narrow lanes in Mahal, Itwari and Gandhibag were obstructing traffic and making firefighting harder in a densely built quarter of the city.
The drive will continue over the next few days, the enforcement wing said, warning of action if the encroachments return.
Residents in the affected stretches have in the past complained that drives clear the front of shops one week and the same carts return the next, a pattern civic officials say they are trying to break with repeated visits.