Saturday, 29 June 2024
Saturday, 29 June 2024
On Monday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed strong displeasure at the sorry state of civic amenities across the state. Flagging widespread encroachments and other familiar malaise that plague the city, she criticised party colleagues, MLAs, councillors, bureaucrats and the police for various issues, including the encroachment of footpaths and pathways in and around the city. “A gang has grouped and they are taking money and making outsiders settle here. They want to change the identity of Bengal, but I will not allow this.There are dirty roads and nobody looks into it. Should I sweep the roads now?”she said, and added, “There is a video of how much the pavements along the roads in Calcutta have been encroached on. Despite this, every new OC (officer in charge) allows this.”
Following her scathing indictment, the police on Tuesday launched an eviction drive to remove illegal obstructions from pavements in the city and beyond.
Pavement near Chowringhee Road cleared
Hawkers on the pavement stretching from Chowringhee Road and the now-closed Roxy cinema, north of the Oberoi Grand, were evicted on Tuesday by a team from the New Market police station. The police arrived in the afternoon and firmly told the hawkers to pack up and leave, clearing the 50m-stretch within an hour and a half. Vendors’ goods were taken to the New Market police station in a minitruck. Over a dozen hawkers who were upset with the “police excess,” pointed to the yellow line drawn on the pavement, demarcating space for pedestrians. Hawkers are only allowed to occupy one-third of the footpath. “The line was drawn under the supervision of the town vending committee. We were told that we would be allowed to do business if we stayed behind the line,” one vendor said. However, tax-paying shops in the vicinity claimed that hawkers never stay within the line.
Illegal hawkers evicted from Puddapukur road
On Tuesday, the crowded Puddapukur Road was cleared of encroaching hawkers by the police. Plastic crates with vegetables, hundreds of water bottles, bricks, sacks and plastic sheets were removed from the road and dumped on the footpath during the clean-up. “We will soon find a way to ensure vehicles move along both directions on Puddapukur Road,” an officer at Bhawanipur police station said. For several years, there was only one viable narrow lane for motorists. Within an hour of the clean up, vegetable vendors picked up their wares and reportedly set up stalls on the footpath.
SSKM Hospital boundary cleaned
Teams from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation cleared all of the blue-black plastic sheets hanging from the illegal stalls along the boundary wall of SSKM Hospital on Tuesday morning. Most hawkers had not opened their stalls when the drive started. Utensils, plastic chairs and wooden tables were removed, and the few vendors present hurriedly took their wares from behind the plastic sheets being cleared. “We will continue with this drive over the next few days so pedestrians don’t face any trouble walking through the streets,” a police officer said.
Eviction along Salt Lake Stadium footpath
Footpaths near the office of the animal resources department (ARD), opposite the Salt Lake Stadium, were cleared of pavement stalls by a team from the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the police on Tuesday. “I am embarrassed by the condition of Salt Lake. People are putting up tarpaulin and setting up shops at will,” the Chief Minister had said on Monday. Around 27 illegal stalls were dismantled. These bamboo and plastic stalls had overtaken the pedestrian footpaths along the KB-KC and LB blocks, opposite the Sports Authority of India (SAI) complex for nearly eight years. In Ward No. 37 and Sector V of Salt Lake, bulldozers were pressed into action to demolish temporary structures put up by hawkers, according to The Hindu.
Decades-old Anwar Shah Road stalls likely to be removed
The plot on 355 Anwar Shah Road houses over 90 illegal stalls on government-owned land. Owners report that some of these establishments are more than 30 years old. On Monday, the Chief Minister said that the plot belonged to the state information and culture department but had been encroached upon. There was an unsuccessful drive to clear the space in 2018. A team from Jadavpur police station collected the contact information of stall owners on Monday, and the plot was measured on Tuesday by state government officials, accompanied by the police. Biman Bhattacharya, a Trinamool Congress worker who runs the ward 93 unit on the plot, stated, “We will not resist if the government pulls down all the structures now.” A local vendor appealed to the state government for an “alternative space”.
Eyes on Gariahat stalls
A team from Gariahat police station went around local pavements on Tuesday. Its members picked up some hawkers who had taken over more than one-third of the footpath, but did not dismantle any illegal stalls. The detained hawkers were released on bail on the same day. Authorities gave shop owners a day’s time to remove their goods from the footpaths and clear the way for pedestrians, The Hindu said. The Chief Minister said on Monday: “Hawkers have put up red and black tarpaulin sheets at the back of the stalls. You have to create a system so it looks good.” Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim told Metro, “We want to cover the back of stalls with a decorated canvas. We floated ten tenders but did not get any bidders. We will do it ourselves now.”
