City civic body seals 10 Kalyan Mandaps

The city civic body here with the help of police today sealed as many as ten community halls (Kalyan Mandaps).
The axe fell on the Kalyan Mandaps for they were operating illegally without having valid licences from the civic body.
The shutting down of these halls came in the wake of an order passed by a Division Bench headed by Justice Indrajit Mahanti of the Orissa High Court in March this year.
Nine Kalyan Mandaps were shut down under Lalbag police station limits and another under Bidanasi police station, officials said adding, the civic body was planning to shut down as many as 104 Kalyan Mandaps in the city.

There are nearly 200 mandaps in the city catering to marriages and other community functions.
A petition was filed in the High Court alleging the mandaps were hosting marriages and other functions without adhering to the specified pollution norms.

Most of these mandaps do not have proper parking spaces as a result during marriage seasons, the road traffic in nearby areas go haywire.
Converting the letter petition into a PIL, the High Court had asked the city civic body to issue licences to those mandaps, which follow proper norms and shut down the violators.
A committee headed by an amicus curie had identified a total of 104 Kalyan Mandaps in the city, which did not obtain the licence from the civic body.

In another development, the district health officials on the day also sealed two private nursing homes and a diagnostic centre in the city after verifying that these health centres were functioning without valid permissions.