No new hawker can set up a stall without applying to the town vending committee for permission, mayor Firhad Hakim said on Friday.
Hakim said the chief minister has said it clearly that new hawkers cannot set up a stall on the pavements.
“The chief minister has made it clear that no new hawker can set up a stall on a footpath. Anyone who wants to set up a stall has to apply to the town vending committee,” Hakim told reporters on Friday.
“It is the committee that will decide who will be allotted space if an old occupant vacates spot.”
Earlier in the day, Trinamul Congress councillor Biswarup De said in the civic house that the statements made by the mayor and officials of the KMC about hawkers do not reflect the reality on streets.
“Hawkers are still using plastic sheets in many places. The mayor and the KMC are saying that all hawkers have to leave two-thirds of (the width of) a pavement free for pedestrians, but that is not happening in almost all places,” De told The Telegraph later.
The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Hawking) Act 2014 empowers the town vending committee to decide how to rehabilitate a hawker or where to make space for a new hawker.
The act says the “Town Vending Committee shall ensure that all existing street vendors, identified in the survey, are accommodated in the vending zones subject to a norm conforming to 2.5 per cent of the population of the ward or zone or town or city”.
The committee has to conduct a survey to identify hawkers. A survey must be conducted at least once every five years.
The town vending committee of Kolkata conducted surveys in three shopping hubs — Gariahat, New Market and Hatibagan — a few months ago.
Far fewer hawkers than the number the latest exercise came across had responded to the KMC’s call for applications for certificates for hawking in 2015, raising the suspicion that many new players have since entered the business and spots on footpaths have changed hands.
The street vendors act says if “in the intervening period between two surveys, any person seeks to vend, the Town Vending Committee may grant a certificate of vending to such person, subject to the scheme, the plan for street vending and the holding capacity of the vending zones”.
BJP councillor Vijay Ojha said in the civic house that hawkers had built showrooms on footpaths in Burrabazar.