Free up encroached areas in New Market, traders write to Kolkata Municipal Corporation
Telegraph | 5 March 2025
The traders of New Market have written to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) requesting the authorities to keep the roads around the market, now heavily encroached by hawkers, free ahead of Eid, a time of the year when a large number of people come to the market.
The traders fear loss of business if hawkers continue setting up stalls on roads as they are doing now. Hawkers have set up stalls on roads around the 150-year-old market. All the pavements have also been encroached. Hardly any space is left for pedestrians.
In another letter, a hawker leader who is also a member of the city’s town vending committee has written to Kolkata Police, highlighting how hawkers have come back on the roads around New Market since they were cleared last year. The letter has also blamed the New Market police station for allowing the situation to worsen by the day.
The encroachment of the roads and the pavements around New Market violate street vending rules that the state government had notified in 2018. The rules mentioned that hawkers have to set up their stalls within one-third of the width of a pavement, leaving two-thirds free for pedestrians. The rules had barred hawkers from setting up their stalls on a road.
“We have written to the KMC that the roads around our market have been completely encroached. The hawkers’ stalls have even blocked the gates of the market. If this continues for the next one month, we will lose customers ahead of Eid,” said Ashok Gupta, president of SS Hogg Market Traders’ Association. “We have told the KMC that they should use their power to free the roads of all encroachments,” Gupta added.
On Sunday, a walk through the roads around the New Market area showed three layers of hawkers on Humayun Place. The front two layers had set up stalls on the road, violating the street vending rules. On Bertram Street stalls were set up on the road. More than half of the width of the pavement along Lindsay Street had been taken over by hawkers. Pedestrians were forced to walk on the road.
Shaktiman Ghosh, a leader of the Hawker Sangram Committee and a member of the town vending committee, told Metro that the committee was against any hawker setting up stalls on roads or occupying more than one-third width of a pavement.
“We have repeatedly asked the New Market police station to act against hawkers violating rules, but nothing happened. We have plans to gherao the New Market police station to increase pressure on the police so that they act,” said Ghosh, who wrote to the deputy commissioner of police (central). The letter said that hawkers were encouraged by the inaction of the New Market police station.
A senior officer of Kolkata Police said they have received the letter. “We are probing the allegations made in the letter. We have conducted regular raids and removed hawkers violating rules. We have also prosecuted the hawkers and these are documented. We have to answer the Calcutta High Court from time to time on what steps we have taken. We are not sitting idle,” said the officer.
“This is a problem of many years and the police alone will not be able to solve it. Multiple stakeholders have to come together to find a permanent solution,” the officer said.