Most hawkers in the New Market area continued to occupy more than one-third width of pavements on Sunday, ignoring a yellow line drawn late on Saturday to reserve space for pedestrians.
The stalls were encroaching on space beyond the line that was drawn by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and the police.
The street vending rules framed by the state government make it mandatory to have at least two-thirds width of all pavements free for pedestrians. The rules, violated on almost all pavements in the city, say hawkers can set up stalls in the remaining one-third of the pavement.
The Telegraph reported on Sunday that the KMC and the police started to earmark two-thirds space for pedestrians late on Saturday. The pavements where the yellow line was drawn were along Lindsay Street, Chowringee Place, Humayun Place and stretches of Bertram Street.
Work to draw the line started around 10.30pm on Saturday and continued till 1am on Sunday.
When this newspaper visited the streets around New Market on Sunday afternoon, there was hardly any perceptible change apart from the yellow line on some pavements.
On Bertram Street, the pavement was completely taken over by hawkers on a long stretch. On some other stretches, there was hardly 2ft-wide space left for pedestrians. A KMC official said the pavement along Bertram Street was 6ft wide. Besides the pavement, half the width of the road was occupied by hawkers.
Along Humayun Place, almost all the stalls had breached the yellow line and entered the portion of the pavement meant for pedestrians. There were three layers of hawkers — one on the pavement and two on the road.
The scene was identical on Lindsay Street, where, too, the yellow line was drawn on Saturday night. Hawkers were sitting beyond the line and also on the road.
The street vending rules say hawkers cannot set up stalls on roads.
The only stretch where hawkers tried to stay within the yellow line on Sunday was along Chowringee Place, which, too, has a narrow pavement. But on this road, the yellow line was drawn on stretches that did not have hawkers, prompting many to wonder if this was an invitation to new hawkers to set up stalls on the stretches that are now vacant.
A hawker on a pavement along Bertram Street, whose stall had stretched outside the yellow line, said he was unaware of what the line meant.
Debashis Kumar, mayoral council member of the KMC who handles hawker issues, told this newspaper that the KMC will start a campaign among hawkers in New Market.
“We have only drawn the yellow line. We will conduct an awareness campaign in the New Market area this week to inform hawkers why the yellow line has been drawn on the pavements. They have to be told what they need to do,” Kumar, who is also the co-chairperson of Kolkata’s town vending committee, said on Sunday.
The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, a central act, has given the committee the power to penalise hawkers and also to take measures to protect their livelihood. Every town or city in the country must have its town vending committee.
Hawkers at the Oberoi Grand Arcade, who used to occupy nearly half the width of the pavement, have restricted their stalls within one-third width of the pavement. The change came after Calcutta High Court asked the KMC to ensure that two-thirds width of the pavement in the arcade was free for pedestrians.
The KMC and the police, which had not implemented the street vending rule earlier, swung into action and the enforced the rule in the arcade.
Since then, hawkers in the arcade have remained within the yellow line, but the scene was opposite in the New Market area on Sunday.
A KMC official said all the hawkers who are sitting on roads have to shift their stalls to pavements or leave. “We may build a new pavement along Bertram Street to accommodate hawkers since the width of the current pavement is narrow. All other roads in the New Market area have wide pavements,” said the official.