Varanasi: The district administration, PWD, and Varanasi Development Authority jointly started the demolition of six buildings in the Dalmandi area on Tuesday, with tight security in place. This followed the earlier demolition of eight buildings that had been purchased, bringing the total to 14 buildings cleared.ADM (City) Alok Kumar said that VDA has already issued demolition orders after serving notices to illegally constructed buildings. Among those, the owners of many buildings completed the formality of selling the property to PWD for the road-widening project, said Kumar, adding that a list of the same buildings had been made for priority demolition. On Tuesday, demolition work began at six buildings, with ongoing work at others where it had already started.
PWD executive engineer KK Singh said that of 187 buildings identified for purchase and removal for the Dalmandi road-widening project, PWD has completed the registration procedure to buy 25 by paying almost Rs 17 crore to their 74 owners. Papers of 35 buildings submitted by their owners are being examined before initiating the registration procedure and paying compensation, he said, adding that the demolition process is being initiated after giving sufficient time to vacate the purchased property.The Rs 224 crore project to widen the 650-metre Dalmandi road had been launched in 2005 to access Gate No. 4 of Kashi Vishwanath Dham from the Lahurabir-Godowlia road at the Naisadak point. A total of 187 buildings have been identified for acquisition and demolition to convert the 650-metre Dalmandi road into a 17.4-metre-wide road.During his press conference here on Jan 18, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who has already issued clear instructions to expedite this process to complete the project at the earliest, targeted the opposition for disturbing the Manikarnika Ghat rejuvenation project to obstruct the Dalmandi project, which aimed to improve access to Kashi Vishwanath Dham.
