The walkways near the office of the animal resources department (ARD), opposite the Salt Lake stadium, were cleared of pavement-grabbing stalls by a team from the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and police on Tuesday.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had on Monday said the pavements near the ARD office in Salt Lake had been completely taken over by encroachers.

On Tuesday, around noon, a team of officials and labourers from the BMC, accompanied by policemen, dismantled the 27 stalls that had come up on the pavements. The illegal stalls were there for nearly eight years, said a civic official.

“Maal kothay thakbey, aapnara ki korben aami jani na. Corporation theke esechhe bhangtey. Aamra soraboi. (I don’t know where you will keep your things. The civic teams are here for the eviction drive. We will ensure that it is done),” the inspector in charge of Bidhannagar South police station, Mahakash Chowdhury, told a group of hawkers before the eviction started.

The bamboo and plastic stalls had completely taken over the walkways along the KB-KC and LB Blocks, opposite the Sports Authority of India (SAI) complex, rendering them useless for pedestrians.

Some of the stalls sold groceries and used furniture, while others functioned as eateries.

Sukantanagar resident Gopal Das, who ran a shop that would repair and sell old furniture, said they had never thought that the drive would take place.

“We knew the chief minister had spoken about this stretch. We were not expecting an eviction though. My shop has been razed,” said Das.

The picture, however, was starkly different in Sector V and New Town on Tuesday.

On Monday, the chief minister had said that rows of pavement-grabbing stalls had turned the area around the Webel Bhavan in Sector V ugly. She had also said encroachers were taking over New Town and Rajarhat.

“I was passing by Webel the day before yesterday. I saw many shops. All set up by outsiders. They have turned the place dirty. Why not create a food zone in the area? This will not disturb people. People can walk a bit and eat,” Mamata had said at an administrative meeting on Monday.

However, the hawkers in Sector V and New Town were unperturbed as no eviction drive was launched.

“We have asked all stall owners to keep nothing on the roads and to ensure that a portion of the pavements is free for pedestrians. We told them that this has to be done permanently,” said Tapas Kumar Das, the inspector in charge of Electronics Complex police station in Sector V.

“We have told the police that we will abide by the guidelines,” said Bhabatosh Sarkar, the president of the Trinamool-affiliated Salt Lake Sector V Hawkers Welfare
Association.