As city celebrates, hawkers come back to New Mkt, Hatibagan
Times of India | 31 December 2024
12 Kolkata: The clean-up of encroachment around the heritage New Market on its 150th anniversary has come to naught with hawkers returning in larger numbers to occupy fresh spots on the carriageway and pavements in the run-up to the New Year festivities. The absence of regulation by either the civic authorities or the police left shopkeepers and shoppers frustrated as access to several gates to the heritage market has become severely constricted.
Similarly, new hawkers in the Hatibagan area started gobbling up a lion's share of pavements and spilling over on to the carriageways. Here, the encroachment issue was under control until the festive season began. "From the end of Aug, a section of hawkers began reclaiming pavement space. Some started selling their wares on the carriageways. Though the process started quietly, encroachment has become rampant now and it will grow in the absence of police action," said Rabin Pal, a resident of Aurobindo Sarani.
Following a stream of complaints from shoppers and shopkeepers in New Market and Hatibagan, TOI visited the streets, only to find more hawkers on the roads and pavements than there were in July when CM Mamata Banerjee read the riot act against encroachment of pavements and roads.
While push-back drives were carried out in the days following the expression of annoyance by the CM, and lines were drawn limiting hawkers to a third of the pavements, and a survey carried out to relocate hawkers who encroached on the carriageways, the situation has reversed in both hawking hubs, and turned worse ahead of the New Year, alleged traders and shoppers.
On Bertram Street, new hawkers started encroaching on the road from the first week of Dec, a hawkers' union leader of the area said. According to Ashraf Ali, a joint secretary of the SS Hogg Market, the encroachment on Bertram Street and other sides of the heritage market was causing great inconvenience. "On Bertram Street, where more than half the road was occupied by hawkers, and shoppers were not allowed to park their vehicles in the KMC-allotted parking lots, the situation is perilously back to where it was before July-Aug with hawkers brazenly reclaiming road space and occupying pavements.
"We are worried that if the present trend continues, the encroachment will gobble up all the space that was left free after a series of eviction drives since July," said Ali.
On Hogg Street, TOI found four rows of hawkers between the entrance to the cake and biscuit range and the entrance to the new block of New Market. Two bangle shops occupied a section of the New Market premises while over a dozen stalls were set up to sell apparel and snacks. "The entrance to the cake and biscuit range has almost been usurped by the hawkers," complained a shop-owner.
Hawkers' union leader and a member of the Town Vending Committee Saktipada Mondal admitted that more vigilance should have been kept on the hawkers who have been trying to reclaim public space in major hawking zones. "If festivities provided a scope for some hawkers to reclaim the lost space, now it is time the cops should become more active and conduct regular drives to keep the carriageways free of encroachment. Similarly, the pavements should also come under the scanner of the cops," said Mondal.
According to a KMC official, the cops have been alerted on the fresh encroachments in New Market and other hawking hubs. "Now that the festivities are getting over, the cops have been asked to concentrate on patrolling the major hawking hubs," the official said.
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