Calcutta’s roads and open spaces are being grabbed with impunity. Calcuttans have known that for some time.

On Monday, the admission came from the chief minister herself.

Mamata Banerjee pulled no punches when she held politicians, police and government babus responsible for the mess along roads and underlined how ugly the city had become in some parts.

“Officials, police, all: a group has formed. Wherever there is free land, you are helping in its encroachment. I can see (encroachments) whenever I am on the road. The police cannot see. They have blindfolded themselves,” Mamata said during a meeting at Nabanna on Monday.

The meeting was called weeks after the announcement of the results of the Lok Sabha elections that showed the Trinamool Congress fared relatively poorly in urban pockets.

Heads of civic bodies, ministers, MLAs, top bureaucrats and senior police officers were in attendance when the chief minister spoke.

“There is a video of how much of the pavements along roads in Calcutta have been encroached on. Despite this, every new OC (officers in charge of police stations) allow new encroachments,” Mamata said.

The chief minister named Bidhannagar MLA Sujit Bose for aiding the encroachers in Salt Lake.

“I am ashamed of Salt Lake (lajja lagey),” she said.

She also spoke about the condition of Hatibagan and Gariahat, two shopping hubs in Calcutta where visitors are at the mercy of pavement-grabbing hawkers. Shoppers and residents of these places have for years alleged that the neighbourhoods had turned into hell-holes because of the way hawkers conduct their businesses.

Mamata echoed them on Monday.

“Has anyone ever looked at Hatibagan and seen its condition?” the chief minister said, the tone suggesting clearly that she did not like what she saw there.

She then highlighted the dirty covers hanging at the back of hawkers’ stalls in Gariahat, eyesores that have made the once beautiful Rashbehari Avenue ugly. “Hawkers have put up red and black tarpaulins at the back of the stalls. You have to create a system so that it looks well.”

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) had allowed hawkers in Gariahat to set up tin sheds over their stalls as protective overhead covers. But the backs and sides of the stalls remained open.

Days later, the hawkers went back to their old ways, hanging tarpaulin sheets and torn and stained bed covers at the back of the stalls. Hawkers said they were forced to hang the worn-out sheets to protect their wares from dust.

The KMC had decided to put up metal plates mounted on rectangular panels to replace the torn sheets at the back of the stalls.

Metro reported on April 15, 2023, that two stalls near the Gariahat crossing got metal plates at their back as a test case. In over a year since, the KMC has not made any progress in covering the backs of the stalls.

This newspaper has published a series of reports highlighting citizens’ angst about the mushrooming of pavement-grabbing stalls, the apathy of the authorities in reining them in and the steady slide of once beautiful parts of the city into ugliness.

Mamata was particularly scathing while speaking about Salt Lake and Howrah on Monday. “In Salt Lake, Sujit Bose ichchhe moto lok bosachchhe (is helping people encroach at will), competing with others.”

Bose is the Bidhannagar MLA and the state’s fire and emergency services minister. Many residents of Salt Lake have complained over the years about how the once planned township was being overrun by shacks and stalls that occupy entire pavements and force pedestrians on to roads.

Mamata went on: “Opposite ARD (animal resources department) office (in Salt Lake’s LB Block), you will
feel ashamed. The entire area has been encroached. They are hanging a tarpaulin
sheet and encroaching the space. How much money they had to pay? Who took this money? Why don’t the councillors of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation do
anything?”

“I was passing by Webel day before yesterday (Saturday). 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,” the chief minister said.

On Monday evening, Bose told Metro that he did not bring in encroachers. “It is the duty of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation to ensure that the pavements are free of encroachers,” Bose said.

At the chief minister’s meeting, Bose was seated next to the Bidhannagar mayor, Krishna Chakraborty, already facing flak for the township’s creaking civic infrastructure.

About Howrah, Mamata said: “Land belonging to the corporation is getting encroached. I will ask the Howrah police to start a probe.”

She called hawkers “brothers and sisters” but insisted that “there should not be any increase in the number of hawkers from what it is now”.

There are encroachments in New Town, too, a planned and new township, Mamata said.

Political observers said Trinamool’s electoral showing suggested a creeping urban disenchantment with the state government and the local civic administrations.

The state government framed street vending rules in 2018, which made it mandatory for hawkers to leave two-thirds of the width of pavements free for pedestrians.

The rules also prohibited hawkers from setting up stalls on roads. The rules have remained only on paper.

In the New Market area, for instance, entire roads have been turned into hawking zones. The KMC set up a town vending committee about two years ago. Despite several meetings and promises to regulate hawkers, there has hardly been any perceptible change on the ground.

The KMC refused to declare the Grand arcade a no-hawking zone despite requests from the institution.

Police action

Within hours of the chief minister criticising the police for not doing enough to prevent encroachments, separate teams from Calcutta and Bidhannagar asked hawkers on some stretches mentioned by the chief minister to fold up their stalls.

In Gariahat and Hatibagan, the police visited several stalls. Officers said they had received instructions from seniors to start collecting information on the encroachers and draw up a list.

In Sector V, too, the police were out on the roads. They were asking pavement-grabbing stalls not to spill onto the roads.