Kolkata: Citing security reasons, Mayor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) Firhad Hakim said he will be writing a letter to the Commissioner of Kolkata Police to carry out identity verification of ragpickers on city pavements and shift them to the city’s urban shelters.
Addressing the press, Hakim added that it is vital to check the identity of the ragpickers who have “hijacked” city pavements.
“I will write to the police to check the identities of these people. Unidentified people with ill intention can cause a law and order problem. The police need to check their identity documents such as Aadhaar, voter ID, etc to also ensure whether outsiders are staying here illegally,” he said. He further maintained: “The ragpickers litter on the pavements even after KMC cleans the waste from city roads. This also makes the city appear dirty, creating a bad impression for tourists. Pavements in areas such as Southern Avenue, Ballygunge, Kalighat etc. have been taken over completely. This needs to be checked.”
Hakim added: “We have already built several urban shelters to accommodate such pavement dwellers. In these shelters, all sorts of arrangements have been made, including food and sanitation. We earlier gave a list of these urban shelters in the city to the police. We will send them again.”
He informed that one more floor is being added to the Kalighat urban shelter for the homeless. “One floor is large enough to accommodate more than 100 people. We now have several of such shelters in the city,” Hakim assured. There are about 12 such shelters in the city, said a KMC official. These shelters are mainly looked after by NGOs. To tackle the wastes that are dumped on the pavements, Hakim said: “We have asked the solid waste management to set up a shed at Dhapa for segregation of wastes.”