Thick plastic sheets hanging overhead and extending to three sides of stalls. More than half the width of a footpath gobbled up. Hawkers opposite each other on the same stretch of the footpath and in places, encroaching on roads.
Hawkers across the city have made a mockery of the rules of hawking prepared by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC).
A hawker survey, where the hawkers are also informed about the rules they have to follow, has been going on for over 10 days in Gariahat. The survey has ended in Hatibagan. In neither of these places, the hawkers cared about following rules.
On Friday, mayor Firhad Hakim said that the city's police commissioner was sitting on a letter that Hakim sent the top cop about hawkers using plastic sheets to cover their stalls. Hakim said he sent the letter to Vineet Goyal, the police commissioner, on November 2 but did not see any action.
Hakim referred to a fire that broke out in winter and was fanned by plastic sheets.
The Telegraph toured Hatibagan and Gariahat on Saturday and saw hawkers did not care about what the mayor says.
At Hatibagan, a number of stalls had extended to the thoroughfare near the Bidhan Sarani-Aurobindo Sarani crossing. The chaotic and narrow crossing has turned narrower with stalls eating away portions of the road.
In both Hatibagan and Gariahat, stretches of the footpaths resembled dimly lit tunnels as sunlight could not reach there. Bulbs and other lights used by hawkers were the only sources of light for pedestrians on the footpath.
The stretch from Traders Assembly to the intersection of Rashbehari Avenue and Ramani Chatterjee Road had a sequence of stalls with plastic sheets wrapped around them. It is on this stretch that a fire had broken out in 2019 and spread to the building housing Traders Assembly. It was alleged that the fire spread from a stall to the building through the plastic sheets tied to the building.
The rules prepared by the KMC say that hawkers cannot use plastic sheets or any other inflammable item to protect or cover their stalls.
Plastic sheets cover hawkers’ stalls in Gariahat on Saturday Sanat Kr Sinha
In Gariahat and Hatibagan, there were hawkers sitting opposite each other taking away more than half the width of the footpath. The rules have made it mandatory that hawkers cannot occupy more than one-third width of the footpath.
When the hawker survey started on November 9 in Gariahat, a number of violations were noticed. The police had then drawn a line marking the limit up to which a stall can extend and what was one-third width of the pavement on that stretch.
The limits have been marked but there is no decision yet on when the surveyed stalls will be revisited to see if they have adhered to the rules.
“We have not completed the survey yet. What action will be taken and when against those who do not adhere to rules is something that the kMC and the town vending committee will have to decide. We will do as instructed,” said an officer of the Gariahat police station.
The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, has empowered the town vending committee to take decisions about the identification and regulation of hawkers.
A Gariahat resident said that the area was turning more chaotic with time. There was hardly any space to walk on the footpaths and pedestrians are forced to walk on the road.
In the Esplanade-New Market zone, there are hawkers occupying the entire footpath opposite the entry gate to Peerless Inn. Hawkers sit on the road on several stretches of Bertram Street.
“The survey will be completed in another week or so. A report of violators will be submitted. We will then decide what action will be taken regarding those hawkers who have not followed the rules,” said Debashis Das, a member of the town vending committee and a hawker leader.