Hawker survey: KMC show causes workers for ‘dereliction of duty’

Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) is learnt to have asked a section of its workers to show cause for allegedly dodging responsibilities relating to conducting hawker surveys

in the city.

It was learnt that the civic body had deployed a total of 672 workers for the survey of hawker zones in the city but it came to the attention of the civic body that not everyone turned up for the work.

The KMC learnt that about 50 workers did not even participate in the jobs. Further, they did not even turn up for the training imparted for conducting the survey,

sources said.

Sources said the absence of the workers affected the survey process and hence all 50 of them were asked to show cause for alleged dereliction of duty.

It has now been decided that about 30 new workers will be trained and deployed for the survey work which needs to be completed. It also came to light that many of the workers who were asked to show cause replied to the notices but the KMC felt that their replies were unsatisfactory.

However, it is presently not known if the civic body will take any stringent steps against them since now the priority is to complete the task at hand and submit a report to the state secretariat.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had expressed concerns during her administrative meeting that footpaths in the city are being randomly taken over by hawkers.

She had said that even though hawkers have the right to earn a living they cannot randomly sit wherever they deem fit. Following her directions, the KMC had launched a survey of all hawker zones in the city to compile a comprehensive report.

Debasish Kumar, Member Mayor in Council of Hawkers’ Rehabilitation Scheme had told the media: “We are using an app developed by the Information Technology (IT) department to geo tag genuine hawkers to a particular hawking zone. The app will store the information of the stalls. The name of the hawkers along with their photos will be stored and the information will be 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.”