Kolkata: Plastic sheets that were pulled down during the cop-KMC clean-up drive a few weeks ago were out again after a spell of rain on Friday morning.
From traditional shopping hubs to the Central Business District, pavements were covered with a canopy of blue and white plastic sheets. Hawkers said they were back to using plastic to protect their inventory from rain.
Police had directed the hawkers to remove plastic sheets after CM Mamata Banerjee rapped a section of her cabinet colleagues, cops and civic officials for indiscriminate encroachment of pavements and use of plastic that can spark a blaze. During the crackdown, many hawkers had pulled down the sheets but those were back on Friday after a spell of rain in the morning.
A hawker selling purses and wallets on Brabourne Road said he had put up the plastic to protect his stock from getting damaged in rain. “It rained heavily in the morning and the sky is still overcast. I had stopped using plastic but today, I had to bring it out to protect my wares,” said Mohammad Sharique Hossain, a vendor on the pavement in front of Nanadaram Market.
The cops had told the hawkers to use small plastic sheets to cover the goods during the rain instead of setting it up on top of the stalls. “Those are not adequate. The big sheets protect us as well and keep the area around the stall from getting messy,” said another hawker in Hatibagan.
In Sep 2019, a fire from a hawker’s stall gutted a portion of Bagri Market, damaging goods and property worth several hundred crores. Earlier that year, a fire at a hawker’s stall in Gariahat gutted the building housing Traders Assembly and Adi Dhakeswari Bastralaya.