The drive to evict hawkers who have encroached on thoroughfares and taken over pavements will be “on hold” for a month, Mamata Banerjee said on Thursday after hawker unions promised to remove all stalls from the roads and free up enough space on the sidewalks.

Just as she had on Monday, a day before the eviction drive began, the Bengal chief minister accused police and politicians of helping people grab public spaces illegally, often against a payment.

“Local police and local (political) leaders are the ones most responsible for this,” she said, echoing what Calcuttans have believed for years.

“You will let them set up stalls and then use bulldozers to demolish their stalls. I don’t support this. They (hawkers) should be restricted from the beginning,” Mamata said at a televised meeting at state secretariat Nabanna that discussed hawker-related issues.

Among those in attendance — in person or online — were the Calcutta mayor, all mayoral council members from the city, the heads of several civic bodies, senior police officers, bureaucrats and hawkers’ representatives.

Mamata threatened to get councillors arrested if found to have allowed hawkers to set up illegal stalls against a bribe.

“The councillor in whose ward this (pavement-grabbing) happens will be arrested,” she said.

While the drive is on hold, no new stalls will be allowed to come up on the pavements, Mamata added.

“The evictions will be on hold. They are asking for a month’s time, but during this period we must go ahead with our work,” Mamata said after a hawkers’ representative from the New Market locality sought a month from her, promising to remove stalls from the roads.

The police had removed illegal encroachments from several areas in Calcutta and its neighbourhood over the past two days, at times using bulldozers to raze round-the-year structures built by hawkers or shopkeepers that intruded on public spaces.

On Wednesday, the city police cleared Humayun Place, where multiple lines of illegal hawkers’ stalls had narrowed the street for years.

Street-vending rules framed by the state government prohibit any stalls on the roads. Stalls on the pavements are required to leave at least two-thirds of the width of the pavement free for pedestrians.

At least one more road in the New Market area — Bertram Street — still has stalls on the road. Calcutta police commissioner Vineet Goyal drove through a stretch of Bertram Street on Tuesday and saw firsthand what ordinary Calcuttans have to endure every day.

Mayor Firhad Hakim told The Telegraph on Thursday evening that the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and the police would use the one-month pause to plan “how to organise the hawkers”.

“We will also conduct campaigns and visit the street-vending hubs to see
that the hawkers follow the rules,” he said.

Hakim, also the state municipal affairs and urban development minister, said the KMC would conduct a fresh survey of hawkers in the city.

“I have also ordered surveys to identify hawkers in all municipal areas. They should begin immediately,” he said.

From Nabanna, Hakim went straight to the municipal affairs department’s office in Salt Lake and chaired a long meeting. Mamata said there should be a building at every shopping hub that will serve as a warehouse for hawkers and will have all the necessary fire-fighting “mechanisms”.

She told the hawkers they must realise the risks of taking up entire pavements. “If an entire pavement is encroached on, people cannot walk. It leads to accidents.”

She added: “The stalls are turning into godowns. Hawkers are using plastic (sheets) indiscriminately. You don’t have the right to set up godowns next to your stalls.”

Continuing to call out councillors, police and local politicians, Mamata warned: “Taking chanda (subscription, a euphemism for extortion) from poor hawkers must stop. I’m saying this to the police, hawkers’ leaders and politicians.”

She advised the civic body to cover the backs of those stalls where the hawkers may have put up torn and stained bed sheets.