kolkata: Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will soon commence the process of enlisting the hawkers on the basis of the last survey report of 2015. This was decided at the meeting of Town Vending Committee at KMC on Thursday in presence of Member Mayor in Council Debasish Kumar, who supervises the hawkers' rehabilitation.
"We have decided to start enlistment of the hawkers, who are continuing with their vending since the conduct of the last survey in 2015. We will accept new applications for vending only after the exercise of enlistment is completed,"Kumar said.
About 58,000 hawkers were found in the 2015 survey. The individual hawkers will have to submit an affidavit to the KMC on the basis of which the enlistment will be made, said Kumar.
KMC from the month of November with representatives from Town Vending Committee and concerned police station has started a pilot survey of hawkers.
It is being carried out at Gariahat, New Market and Hatibagan. The footpaths in these three places have been largely encroached by the hawkers and a walk along them is a nightmare for the common people, who are compelled to walk on roads, risking their lives.
The survey will identify hawkers, who have encroached the roads or are occupying more than a third of the width of pavements.
"The purpose of the survey is to find out the proliferation in the number of hawkers since the last exercise. The survey will also identify the hawkers, who sit with their wares in front of heritage buildings.
The exercise will formally count the number of hawkers, who are following or violating the one-third-footpath-occupancy rule," a senior official of KMC said. Joint Commissioner of Police (headquarter) Subhankar Sinha Sarkar, representative from traders' organisation and members of Town Vending Committee attended the meeting.