The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) has decided to resettle hawkers who are being evicted by Darjeeling and Kurseong municipalities by building new market spaces.

Anit Thapa, the chief executive of the GTA, met the hawkers of Kurseong on Wednesday and made the announcement.

“The GTA will construct shops for you at one or more spots. We will identify the area once you draw up a list of hawkers,” Thapa told the hawkers.

Around 70 hawkers are being evicted by the Kurseong municipality who had set up their stalls on pavements.

“We will start work immediately and try to hand over the shops before Puja. A family will be given only one shop. We will charge only a nominal municipality tax. You will be getting a shop worth ₹10 lakh or ₹15 lakh for almost free,” said Thapa.

He said the hawkers would have to work out a system to allocate the shops to themselves. “A family will get only one shop. The allocation of the shop must be worked out by the hawkers’ association. The municipality will not interfere,” said Thapa, adding the administration had realised that the hawkers wanted shops at the best locations.

Remnants of an unauthorised stall which was dismantled by the Kurseong municipality on Monday.

The GTA also plans to resettle 182 hawkers who set up shops along Thorn Road which meets Chowrasta in Darjeeling. The hawkers have started dismantling their stalls along this road after being told by the authorities to do so.

“The GTA is working on a plan to settle workers in a new building,” said Dipendra Thakuri, the chairman of the Darjeeling municipality.

The cost of the project and the design were not immediately available but sources hinted that a park-like structure would be constructed along one of the slopes
of Chowrasta.

Thapa’s Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM) controls both the civic bodies of Darjeeling and Kurseong.

Thapa also announced that another set of 106 hawkers on the Mall Road at Chowrasta would be evicted by August 15 and a resettlement plan would be worked out for them.

The authorities had removed the hawkers, who had been temporarily given space on the Mall Road in 2014, for four days from April 1, 2023, in view of a G20 meeting here.

The vendors were given space to put up their stalls on the premises of the Gorkha Rangamanch Bhawan in Darjeeling. The hawkers, citing poor business, returned to the Mall Road on December 28, 2023, and still occupy the space.