pune banners outside three housing societies in kothrud have a clear message for candidates we are regular tax payers and voters too for more than 15 years we have been demanding road widening and removal of encroachments on the footpaths near our societies what we got in return is encroachments everywhere and traffic congestion why then should we vote the banners sayresidents of shrushti society vatsalyanagari and guru ganeshnagar along the dp road in kothrud may boycott the assembly elections they are tired of the encroachments and traffic problems they have been facing for over a decade and angry about the authorities and local political leaders looking the other waymembers of shrushti society were the first to put up the banner last week on tuesday the other two societies joined them a resident of shrushti society who did not wish to be named told toi that for the past 14 years the residents have been suffering from neglect the road from ashish garden chowk to our society is already narrow and has become narrower due to encroachments he said the pune municipal corporation has removed some encroachments and shifted the rest to other areas but there are now shops selling meat cycle repair shops and shops collecting old newspapers and rags residents also face severe traffic congestion every day the authorities are doing nothing he said dp road is one of the most congested routes in kothrud during peak hours congestion can cause endless traffic jamsone resident said haphazard parking at the entrance of the society is also a major problem about six months ago a woman from our housing society was going out on her twowheeler with her child someone knocked her down at the entrance she fractured her leg and cannot step out of her home nowduring the election campaigning in 2014 residents said the candidates had promised them a solution to the problems however after the elections when we approached the leaders to remind them about their assurances they simply told us that the matter is in the court he said footpaths encroached members of guru ganeshnagar and vatsalyanagar societies said footpaths along dp road had been encroached upon by vegetable vendors we always have our hearts in our mouth while crossing the road a resident of vatsalyanagari said residents said they had approached the pmc officials responded by making the road a hawkers zone corporators are not supporting us we do not have any option but refuse to vote there are over 700 flats in these societies and one cannot ignore that number residents saidassistant municipal commissioner of kothrud and bavdhan ward office shishir bahulikar told toi we regularly remove encroachments in the area on tuesday we had a drive on dp road which cleared most of its encroachments we also cleaned the footpaths and the entire stretch from shrushti society to shantiban society chowk bahulikar said he had also directed authorities on the ground to take stringent action regularly against unauthorised hawkers i do