Ensure 50 feet clear space on 28 major thoroughfares, says Mayor

Kolkata: Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim announced on Saturday that 50 feet of space on either side of 28 major city thoroughfares will be ensured by clearing away all encroachments.

“We assign top priority to the safety and security of the pedestrians and so we will be clearing encroachments in 28 major roads in the city to allow 50 feet space on either side of the road. We will be putting up no vending boards to ensure that there is no further encroachment,” Firhad Hakim said.

Referring to a letter from the superintendent of NRS Hospital with a complaint of hawkers blocking pathways, the Mayor said the Supreme Court has specific directions for keeping such pathways completely free and hence the police have been asked to do the needful in this regard.

Hakim reiterated that hawkers should do their business leaving two-thirds space for pedestrians as per directions of the judiciary.

“Everyone must adhere to the law, and if they overstep, the law will take its course,” Mayor Hakim added.

The five-member committee, appointed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday to oversee hawker regulations, convened on Friday. Following the meeting, Mayor Hakim declared that measures would be taken to discipline hawkers, and a survey to determine their numbers has commenced.

The members of the committee include Firhad Hakim, Deputy Mayor Atin Ghosh, mayoral council member Debashis Kumar and state ministers Aroop Biswas and Moloy Ghatak.

The Kolkata Police Commissioner, KMC commissioner and the Secretary of the state Urban Development department attended the meeting, too.

The survey started from Gariahat on Friday and will then cover the New Market area from Monday.

An app is being used to do the survey and store the information of the stalls. It will be a GIS (Geographic Information System)-based exercise where the coordinates of the stalls will be recorded.

The name of the hawker and his or her picture will be stored and the information linked with Aadhaar. The Aadhaar-linking will ensure that one person does not have more than one stall in the city, as per instructions by the Chief Minister.

Meanwhile, the New Market area was on the boil on Saturday over differences between hawkers and the businessmen having permanent shops with one training gun on the other over not allowing them to carry their business smoothly.

The police had to intervene to pacify both parties assuring investigation based on their respective complaints of grievances.

Drive to clear illegal encroachments on footpaths was held at Krishnanagar in Nadia after three days of constant miking for clearing encroachments.

Bolpur municipality carried out a drive to clear footpaths in the Chitra Junction area while Rampurhat Municipality in Birbhum also resorted to a drive against hawkers.