According to an estimate of the UT Estate Office, more than half of the common land around the government houses in various parts of the city has been grabbed by occupants by giving various reasons.

Nearly two-thirds of government houses in the city have additional rooms in the backyard, in clear violation of the building by-laws. Some of the occupants have even breached the rear and side walls and put up gates, posing a traffic hazard.

Senior officials in the Architecture Department said they haven't given anyone, including government officials, the permission to make modifications beyond what has been sanctioned in the building plan. The problem of encroachments is quite alarming in Sectors 7, 8, 14, 22, 23 and 46, where influential allottees have raised both temporary and permanent structures, blocking the footpath, and at some places, even parts of the road.

The situation in Sector 7 is particularly bad where most of the senior UT officials reside. Here, parks are being used to provide makeshift accommodation to the security personnel, forcing the residents to go to other sectors for their stroll.

MC enforcement officials told Newsline that the encroachments made on the T-points of dividing roads between the sectors have already been removed and action on the internal roads would soon follow. Said an official: "Since these houses are being maintained by the UT Engineering Department, the removal of unauthorised construction is the obvious duty of the Administration."

Senior staff members of the Estate Office, however, declined to make any comment on record on the issue of encroachments, though they said that no directions have been issued for the removal of these unauthorised constructions.

When a Newsline team visited Sector 7, workers of the UT Maintenance Wing complained that the open space earlier used by them for parking their vehicles has now been encroached upon by a former UT officer. A senior UT official, who refused to be quoted, justified the encroachments and said there was nothing wrong if open spaces were taken over and beautified. "I will remove the hedges if the neighbours have any objections," he said.