Stalls that had come up illegally on airport land and closed down by police in the third week of January have since reopened.
Officials at the airport said the stalls — which sell fast food, tea and cigarettes, among other items — remained closed for more than a week but reopened on January 30, in the presence of a senior Trinamul Congress leader from the area.
“The shops were closed down by the police in the third week of January. But eight days later, they reopened. A senior Trinamul Congress leader supervised the reopening,” an official at the NSCBI Airport said.
A senior officer in the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate said any action against the illegal stalls are unlikely before the general elections, which are set to be held by the middle of this
year.
“Now that the polls are around the corner and the hawkers running the illegal stalls are foot soldiers of the ruling party, the civic authorities would understandably do nothing to disturb them. In the Dum Dum area, hawkers actively take part in various political activities of the Trinamul Congress and its various outfits,” the officer said.
The Telegraph has published a series of reports over a fortnight in January highlighting the state of affairs at the Kolkata airport. One of the reports in the series focussed on the illegal stalls on the airport premises.
The owners of some of the food stalls that pay a licence fee to the airport authorities for running their establishments allege that the illegal stalls are eating into their business.
There are now more than 30 illegal stalls inside the parking lot opposite the old terminal building and the cargo handling unit, officials said.
The stalls are mostly made of bamboo poles and plastic sheets and have umbrellas for shade. They sell fast food, tea, cigarettes and other items and have a steady flow of customers.
Stalls have also mushroomed inside the parking lot and the cargo handling unit. Besides being an eyesore, they pose a serious fire risk.
Most materials used to build the stalls are flammable. In many of them, kerosene stoves and LPG ovens are used to cook food and make tea and coffee.
On Sunday, this newspaper saw parathas, dosas and a host of other items being cooked on kerosene stoves in many of the stalls.
There have been reports from across the city of illegal food stalls, mostly made of flammable materials, catching fire from the flames of the stoves or ovens.
In December, a domestic LPG cylinder exploded inside a fast-food stall in Kestopur, killing one person and leaving as many as 15 men injured.
Another senior officer in the Bidhannagar commissionerate said most of the hawkers running illegal stalls in the airport compound are backed by Trinamul Congress leaders.
“These stalls are backed by Trinamul leaders from Dum Dum. The leaders are often seen in rallies organised by the party in the area,” the officer said.
Asked why no eviction drive is being carried out despite the serious fire risk the stalls pose to as sensitive an installation as the airport, the officer said they could only act if the local civic bodies take an initiative.
Multiple sources in the commissionerate said that though the land where the illegal stalls have come up belongs to the airport, any action against them would require cooperation of local political leaders and municipalities.
A senior official of North Dum Dum Municipality said that nobody had complained to them regarding the stalls.
Harinder Singh, chairman of Dum Dum Municipality, said the stalls are the source of livelihood for many families. “Our government believes in rehabilitating people and not evicting them. Doing so would mean a lot of people would go hungry,” said Singh.
He said there are no shops along the boundary wall of the airport on Jessore Road. “The area inside the walled area is under the airport authorities,” Singh said.