A hawker from Shyambazar who told Kolkata’s mayor on Friday that she had to pay Rs 1.5 lakh to set up a stall presented papers that had a formal agreement ostensibly allowing her to occupy a portion of the footpath.
When The Telegraph visited her on Saturday, Monika Jana showed stamp papers where the transaction had been recorded as evidence.
The papers mentioned the terms on the basis of which the space was handed over to her by its former occupant, who passed away last year.
Monika and her son Animesh Jana built a 4ftX2.5ft stall on a portion of the footpath, a few steps from the Shyambazar five-point crossing, after paying the money. The stall was on the southern footpath along Bhupen Bose Avenue.
Her complaint to the mayor and the documents with clearly laid out terms of agreement are evidence of something many Kolkatans have suspected for years — space on the city’s footpaths is bought and sold. They are given on rent, like Monika said.
Monika and her son used to sell phone covers and headphones, besides repairing mobile phones at the stall.
The stamp papers she showed The Telegraph bore two signatures. Monika said one of them belonged to her and the other to the now-deceased person to whom she made the payment.
The first agreement signed in November 2018 mentioned that Monika was supposed to pay Rs 5,000 a month. She also paid Rs 35,000 as security. The agreement was for five years.
A fresh agreement was signed in February 2021. It mentioned that Monika paid Rs 1.15 lakh and held the right to use the space henceforth. The rent agreement was changed to using the space without any conditions.
“The agreement changed because the previous occupant of the space was not happy with Rs 5,000 per month. He said he needed a lump sum immediately,” said Monika.
The agreement and the fact that the city’s pavement’s are up for sale would not have come to the fore had Monika and her son not faced resistance from sitting in their stall from last December. Family members of the person who allegedly took a total of Rs 1,50,000 from Monika denied that any such payment had been made and wanted to use the space for a stall themselves.
After receiving Monika’s call during the weekly phone in programme Talk to Mayor on Friday, mayor Firhad Hakim said no one had the right to sell any space on the footpath.
“No hawker can sell space to someone else if they are quitting the space. Even giving the space on rent is not legal. I will ask the town vending committee to act against such hawkers,” Hakim said.
The town vending committee (TVC), comprising elected representatives, hawker leaders, police and government officials, is empowered to regulate hawking. The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Hawking) Act 2014, passed by the Parliament, gave the powers to the committee. “The town vending committee will determine which hawker will sit where. No one can sell a space when they quit,” Hakim said.
“We will give the hawkers a license (the vending certificate), but that is not transferrable. The TVC will decide who will sit in the space that someone else has quit. The KMC will take a conservancy charge,” Hakim said.
A law officer of the Bengal government said: “You cannot buy a portion of the footpath. Therefore that question does not arise here. The stamp paper has no legal value in this case. It seems they recorded the transaction on a stamp paper to keep it with each other.”