A number of residents and shopkeepers have written to the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) that new hawkers have blocked the access to their homes and shops, prompting the civic body’s mayoral council to decide on Monday to remove such hawkers.
The CMC has received about 15 complaints in the last few weeks. Some of the complaints were from residents, who wrote that hawkers have blocked the entry or exit of their homes. Traders, too, sent complaints alleging that their business is suffering because hawkers are blocking the access to their shops, said a CMC official.
The proposal passed by the mayoral council — which Metro has read — does not define who will be called a new hawker or how old a stall should be to escape the axe.
However, a senior official of the CMC said that anyone who did not apply for a licence for hawking in 2015 would be considered a new hawker. The state government had mooted a proposal to give licences to hawkers in 2015.
About 59,000 hawkers had applied for a licence. The licences were never issued, though.
A central legislation — the Street Vendor (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 2014 — then came into effect and it said hawkers should
be given certificates of vending.
There is no official figure of the number of hawkers in Calcutta. But a hawker leader said there are about 2.75 lakh hawkers in the Calcutta municipal area and Salt Lake.
Metro asked a CMC official whether the civic body would be acting against
all hawkers who had not applied for a licence in 2015. The official replied: “We
will act if we receive a complaint.”
The proposal passed by the mayoral council mentioned that the civic body would pass on complaints to the police for action. If the police did not act against new hawkers, the civic body would act on its own with help from the police.
The proposal also said the CMC can take action against hawkers if they violate the rules framed by the state government, irrespective of whether they are new or old. Some of the conditions mentioned in the rules are:
- Two-thirds width of any pavement should be left free for pedestrians.
- Entrance or exit of a shop or a house must not be blocked.
- No one should set up a stall on a road.
A CMC official admitted that removal of hawkers would be a herculean task.
The CMC has for several months made promises to ensure that hawkers follow the rules framed by the state government, but across the city hawkers keep violating all the rules.
Hawkers sit on Bertram Street, Lindsay Street and some other roads in the New Market area, but no action has been taken against them. It remains to be seen whether the police or the CMC will start acting against them now.
Shaktiman Ghosh, a hawker leader and a member of Calcutta’s town vending
committee, supported the CMC’s decision. The committee has been empowered by the 2014 Act to punish hawkers as well as protect their right to hawk.
“New hawkers can be barred temporarily. The (central) Act says that the number of hawkers can be up to 2.5 per cent of the total population of a city. If we find there is scope to allow more hawkers, we will allow new hawkers to sit on pavements,” he said.