Varanasi: Demolition picked up pace on Saturday for the Dalmandi road widening project, targeting newly acquired buildings and sites where structures were left partially standing in previous drives. The over Rs 200 crore project aims to improve access to Kashi Vishwanath Dham from the Naisadak point on the Lahurabir-Godowlia road.A joint team from the PWD, district administration, and police reached Dalmandi with a list of 45 buildings slated for demolition, including 15 recently acquired structures. Seven bulldozers and earth-moving machines, along with a large contingent of labourers, were deployed in the street.Officials said demolition of 60 buildings had already been completed, and recent work had focused on clearing debris from the razed structures.PWD executive engineer KK Singh said with the completion of the registry to purchase 15 more buildings, the list of buildings where major demolition works are to be done has been finalised.However, the congested lane is still not allowing the machines to operate with an accelerated pace. By winding up Saturday’s work, the team could touch around 25 of the identified buildings only. Officials said that the drive will be further intensified from Sunday.Regarding the security arrangements, ACP (Dashaswamedh) Atul Anjan Tripathi said that apart from police and PAC jawans, central armed police forces had also been deployed in and around Dalmandi, while drones were also utilised to monitor the area on Saturday.The cops kept utilising loudhailers for announcing and cautioning people gathering to see the bulldozers demolishing the buildings and removing debris.To improve access to Kashi Vishwanath Dham’s gate-4 from the Naisadak point on the Lahurabir-Godowlia road, and to shift load from other roads, especially the Maidagin-Godowlia route, the project of Rs 224 crore was launched to convert the 650 metre Dalmandi road into a 17.4 metre-wide road by purchasing or acquiring a total of 187 buildings and razing them.According to PWD officials, the process of registry for the purchase of 54 buildings has been completed so far. Rs 39 crore had been distributed among 118 shareholders of these purchased buildings. Demolition of 62 buildings, including those declared dilapidated by Varanasi Municipal Corporation and illegal constructions detected by the Varanasi Development Authority had been done before the drive was re-intensified from Saturday.
