The Municipal Corporation's plans of clearing roadside encroachments does not seem to be working as violations have increased manifold in the last couple of months. Vendors have made open restaurants by putting up chairs and tables on the roadside. This is a mockery of the ‘efforts’ of the tehbazari staff, who everyday claim of removing rehris from different locations across the city.

Such open restaurants are flourishing near Ishmeet Chowk, near Lyallpur Sweet Shop, Rose Garden, College Road, Rani Jhansi Road and a few locations in Model Town where people savour on dosa, idli, burger, noodles and other snacks.

Such makeshift restaurants can be seen only in evening hours when no tehbazari staff dares to remove them.

The tehbazari staff, however, passes the buck to the politicians as according to them they had removed rehris from all the above locations a number of times but politicians come to the rescue of roadside vendors.

They also rue that such activities increase after 6 pm when the MC staff is not on duty. "We cannot sit the whole night to check encroachments," said an employee on the condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile from April to June tehbazari, the MC collected Rs 1.42 lakh as composition fee from the roadside encroachers who no doubt are back in place.