Traders from New Market seek CM’s intervention to check hawker ‘menace’
Times of India | 19 December 2025
Kolkata: New Market traders sought intervention by the chief minister's office to tackle hawker encroachment in and around the grade-1 heritage market. They presented their request at a business conclave organised by Confederation of West Bengal Trade Associations at Netaji Indoor Stadium on Wednesday where CM Mamata Banerjee was the keynote speaker.
SS Hogg Market Traders' Association president Ashok Gupta pointed out that despite assurances from KMC and Kolkata Police to keep the streets around New Market free of encroachments, the situation on the ground had only worsened. "KMC and police offered hawkers a festive breather before Durga Puja. But despite the pujas being over for a couple of months, the encroachments have only been growing," Gupta said, adding hawkers had also taken over parking space on Bertram Street and Humayun Place.
A town vending committee member on Thursday conceded that in the absence of current cop vigil, hawkers in large numbers had returned on the roads. "The scene turns worse late afternoon when hawkers start selling their wares from the middle of Bertram Street, Humayun Place and Hogg Street. No police can be seen removing them," he said.
But the town vending committee member pointed out that the KMC-police pushback drive in June had yielded great results with hawkers not daring to take up space on roads under constant cop watch. The relief, he said, was short-lived as hawkers reclaimed their spots on Bertram Street, Humayun Place and Hogg Street by July.
Hawker Sangram Committee chief Saktiman Ghosh, also a member of TVC, said unless police pushed back errant sellers, the purpose of issuing vending certificates to bona fide hawkers would be lost. "We will have to force such vendors to comply with rules or we won't do justice to genuine hawkers," Ghosh said.