Street vendors around New Market have not moved an inch from their old places and there was hardly any space on the pavements for pedestrians on Monday, two days after a line was drawn on the footpaths to demarcate space for pedestrians.
A meeting of Kolkata’s town vending committee is likely to be convened later this week, after which the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) plans to write to police to enforce the rule that hawkers have to stay within a third of the width of a pavement, said an official of the civic body.
The street vending rules, framed by the state government, make it mandatory to keep at least two-thirds of the width of all pavements free for pedestrians.
The CMC and the police drew the yellow line on pavements along Humayun Place, Lindsay Street, Chowringhee Place and stretches of Bertram Street — all in the New Market area — on Saturday night.
This line was meant to be the boundary for street vendors and they were not supposed to have their stalls beyond it. Most traders violated the line on Sunday and Monday.
“We will talk to the police and tell them to enforce the one-third rule. We are approaching the matter slowly. If we try to do things in a hurry, it may create difficulties. Street vendors have been sitting there for years and enforcing the rule will take some time,” said Debashis Kumar, mayoral council member of the
CMC who handles hawker-related matters for the civic body.
“We will also do an awareness campaign in the area later this week and explain the rule to hawkers,” said Kumar, who is also co-chairperson of Kolkata’s town vending committee.
The committee has been empowered by the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, a central act, to identify street vendors and relocate them where necessary.
The members of Kolkata’s committee include police officers, hawkers, CMC officials and elected representatives, among others.
All the roads whose pavements were demarcated on Saturday have hawkers sitting on the carriageway, which is banned by the street vending rules.
There were three layers of hawkers on Humayun Place — the first on the pavement and the other two on the road. On Bertram Street, hawkers sit on the entire stretch. Lindsay Street, too, have hawkers on the carriageway.
Calcutta High Court had in an order in September last year asked the CMC to clear the road in front of their headquarters. A CMC official said the civic body will submit a report to the court mentioning that it had demarcated the pavement and reserved space for pedestrians. The court’s order did not mention any specific road.
While saying that the road in front of the CMC headquarters had been encroached upon, a bench of Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya had ordered: “It is rather unfortunate that such situation is prevailing in front of the head office of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, whose authorities are expected to ensure that the streets and public places are kept free from any encroachment.”
The order added: “Therefore, the Commissioner of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation is directed to take appropriate steps at the first instance by clearing the encroachment in front of their head office.”