kolkata: Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will write to Kolkata Police to take measures for removing plastic or tarpaulin that are used by the hawkers for covering their stalls.
The move comes in the wake of a number of fire incidents in the city where inflammable articles like plastic have fanned the flames.
The decision of putting a leash on the use of plastic by hawkers has been approved in the meeting of the Member Mayor in Council (MMIC) – the highest decision making body of the KMC held on Saturday.
KMC is likely to write to Kolkata Police Commissioner on Monday.
In January 2019, after a massive fire had gutted 29 stalls near the Gariahat crossing, KMC in collaboration with Kolkata Police had held a drive across the city urging hawkers to remove plastic from their stalls. Initially, the hawker abided by the instructions but after some time the plastics returned.
The civic body had distributed 29 stalls with wheels underneath and fitted with LED boards at its back side having space for advertisements to those hawkers whose stalls were damaged.
However, lack of maintenance had rendered majority of these stalls useless with the hawkers returning to their usual practice of covering their stalls with plastic.
A senior official of KMC said that Hakim has said in the MMIC meeting that the civic body will no longer take any risk. " We have to think of
some alternative to plastic or tarpaulin. We cannot continue putting the hawkers and the buyers lives at risk," the official added.