FOOTPATHS have an uncanny tendency to be encroached upon. Or, in other words, people find it easier to keep encroaching upon footpaths. For, all over the city, countless thousands of structures -- residential or commercial -- are known to have encroached upon footpaths in front of their premises. They have constructed ramps to be used while entering or exiting those properties. These ramps occupy almost entire width of footpaths, and therefore impede a smooth flow of public who take to using the sidewalks to traverse small distances. In addition to this, the ramps also look to be a part of bad design and almost fully absent monitoring process that otherwise is expected to rectify mistakes or add value to design by referring to experts from time to time. However, none of these seems to be happening in Nagpur. Each locality appears to be dotted by countless structures whose entry-exit ramps ease onto the footpaths and cause much public nuisance.

 

There is a reason to suspect that the Nagpur Municipal Corporation has not given much thought to this particular problem. There is no doubt that the civic administration has expressed serious concern over different kinds of encroachment on the footpaths or sidewalks. On several occasions, the civic body has announced its intentions to clear the encroachments on footpaths -- and has succeeded to a limited extent in removing those. It is fully possible that the civic body has not specified the encroachment caused by such ramps that take much space on the sidewalks. It may also be possible that in a few cases, the civic body gave notices to owners of properties for encroachment of footpaths by ramps from those structures. Yet, there is a reason to suspect that the civic body might not have given adequate importance to the issue. Time, however, has come to pay attention to this issue in all earnestness. When the administration clears a structure for usage, then it should ensure that the ramp from the structure does not spill onto the sidewalk.

 

If this problem is not tackled on an urgent basis, it would escalate to unmanageable proportions. The latest trend in construction is that most structures stand on a raised platform -- possibly to accommodate underground water storage. It is natural that when the platform is raised to a height of a couple of feet or even more, then ramps become an essential part of the design. Such ramps have a tendency to spill on top the sidewalks. There may be another reason for the raised platform at the base of structures -- flooding of roads. To keep their structures safe from that risk, the designers of structures may be adding a high-enough platform at the base of properties. An extension of this could be that because many roads in the city are being converted into cement surfaces, their thickness also grows -- leading to a greater height of the foundation platform of properties, which may add to the reasons to have ramp descend onto sidewalks. It is necessary to stress that countless ramps are quite steep and cannot be used with ease by average persons -- either while ascending or descending.

 

There have been many people who have refused to buy houses in such properties with steep ramps that extend onto the sidewalks or even to the edge of the carriage-way of the road in front. Countless structures have ramps spilling onto sidewalks throughout the frontage of the properties -- running into several (hundred) feet at a stretch in many cases. Those long stretches cannot be used for any purpose -- even for parking vehicles etc. The essence of ‘The Hitavada’ reporting of the issue (CityLine, August 26, 2026) is straight and simple: It is essential for the civic administration as well as builders’ community to be extremely careful about the norms and regulations and corresponding responsibility. If the ramps are invading the sidewalks, then the design needs to be altered and corrections be introduced so that the malady is tackled properly.

 

That may prove to be a huge activity all across the city, all right. Yet, in the larger interest -- of correct designing of an urban need -- it will have to be undertaken. Some sections of Nagpur’s larger community may tend to treat this issue as rather trivial. But a deeper thought would expose us to the seriousness of the problem. Hence the need for the civic administration to take a good and close look at the problem at large and confront it and ensure appropriate and full-scale correction all over the city. n