Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and the police will conduct a special drive to remove hawkers from roads in and around New Market after Eid-ul-Fitr this month-end. This was decided at a Town Vending Committee (TVC) meeting at the KMC headquarters on Monday. The meeting was convened after a protest by New Market traders against the sharp rise in hawker encroachment on streets around the market.
At the meeting, KMC also announced its decision to hand over around 14,000 vending certificates to hawkers in three hawking hubs, including Hatibagan, New Market, and Hatibagan. The KMC will need to distribute another 40,000 vending certificates after TVC gives its approval, said a civic official.
At the hawker review meeting, representatives of some hawker unions expressed concerns that local hawker unions in the New Market zone were clashing with each other to gain control of carriageways. Trouble erupted in the New Market area on Feb 15 as groups of hawkers clashed on Bertram Street over the right to occupy the road.
A stretch of Bertram Street is reserved for parking cars but was usurped by hawkers for years until it was cleared in August after CM Mamata Banerjee asked the KMC bosses and Kolkata Police to clear road encroachments. During the drive that followed, one line of hawkers was allowed to stay along the market wall on the eastern flank of the road. Another set of hawkers was rehabilitated on the pavement along the western flank. The stall sizes were also reduced to accommodate more numbers. However, with up to five rows of hawkers, including floating ones, doing business prior to the drive, floating hawkers trickled back in the run-up to the festive season.
The general secretary of the Hawker Sangram Committee, Saktiman Ghosh, said: "I fail to understand why the police can't control the situation in New Market even after a special drive that removed hawkers from carriageways in the New Market area." The MMiC and the TVC co-chairman, Debasish Kumar, said: "We can't sit idle and watch hawkers taking over the road space. Timely action will be taken."