The high court on Friday gave the Kolkata Municipal Corporation more time to free the footpath on a stretch of College Street known as Chhanapatti for pedestrians after the civic body said they were working on it and appealed for time.
During a previous hearing, Justice Amrita Sinha had asked the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) to take steps to keep the footpath free. “All necessary steps shall be taken by the authority to keep the footpath free for pedestrians,” Justice Sinha had ordered on January 5.
On Friday, the KMC sought more time to comply with the court’s order.
The January 5 order had also directed Bowbazar police station to assist and provide cooperation to the KMC “at the time of removal of the unauthorised hawkers encroaching the public footpath”.
On Friday, the court gave the KMC a month to execute its earlier order. “The LMC appealed for more time saying they were working on the process of complying with the court’s order. The court agreed to give a month,” said an advocate for the KMC.
The court’s first order was in response to a petition that said hawkers were blocking the entry and exit of a property in Chhanapatti. The petitioner said they were not in a position to build two garages as hawkers had blocked the entry and exit.
Members of Kolkata’s town vending committee had earlier this week visited the place to see where the hawkers blocking the entry and exit of the under-construction building could be shifted.
The committee has been empowered by the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, a central act, to relocate hawkers, if needed. The committee is made up of hawker leaders, officials of the KMC and police, among others.
A KMC official said the committee had selected a stretch for the relocation but owners of many shops there objected because the pavement in front of their establishments would get blocked. “This is a work in progress,” said the official.
The court’s order had also mentioned that the reports that the KMC had submitted in the court showed that two-thirds of the width of the pavement, which is 3m-wide, have been occupied by hawkers.
The street vending rules framed by the state government say hawkers cannot occupy more than a third of the width of a pavement.
“Here, two-thirds is taken by the hawkers. We will have to draw a yellow line on the pavement and restrict hawkers to one-third width of the pavement,” a KMC official said.
Justice Sinha had in November asked the KMC to ensure that two-thirds width of the pavement at the Oberoi Grand arcade was made free for pedestrians. Following the court’s order, the KMC and the police pushed back hawkers.