Stung by the alarming rise in complaints regarding illegal constructions, the anti-encroachment squads attached to the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) have launched a massive demolition drive to weed out the illegal structures in the twin-city. 

Apart from 139 hutments, seven scrap godowns and three sheds which were illegally built by destructing mangroves on land tagged under the coastal regulation zone (CRZ) in the Indralok area of Bhayandar (east) and near the highway in Ghodbunder, the anti-encroachment squad razed an illegally constructed lodging facility which was housed in a ground-plus-one structure in Kashimira.

The illegal structures were pulled down with the help of JCB machines amidst tight police security in the past less than a week.

However, it has been alleged that the  junior engineers attached to the local ward offices on a contractual basis were not only adopting a pick-and-choose policy to target certain establishments but were going soft on some illegal structures by taking cosmetic action, thus raising a serious question mark on the credibility of the drive.

Meanwhile, the legal department has also been instructed to clear hurdles by speeding up the process of vacating stays on the virtue of which illegal constructions are protected, an official said. Moreover, the MBMC has miserably failed to act against several illegal constructions whose stay orders have been vacated by the judiciary.