Hawkers gobble up even Grand pedestrian channel

Kolkata: After gobbling up Bertram Street and Humayun Place, a section of hawkers have shifted focus on a portion of Jawaharlal Nehru Road (in front of Oberoi Grand) that has been barricaded by cops for pedestrian movement. According to Mithu Banerjee, a regular shopper at Grand Arcade, the attempt to grab this barricaded portion started slowly a month ago. "Half a dozen food vendors were seen vying for space. After an initial hide-and-seek game with the cops, the number of hawkers has multiplied, thanks to an absence of proper vigil. Pedestrians have been left in the lurch," complained Banerjee.
During visits to the central Kolkata shopping hub in recent weeks, a TOI team found that unauthorised hawkers had taken over half the road space. On both Bertram Street and Humayun Place, the car parking space, which was earlier freed up for vehicles, the hawkers have made a daring comeback. Hawker Sangram Committee chief Saktiman Ghosh said he was upset with a section of hawkers grabbing prime space illegally. "Though I fight to establish hawking rights, I was really surprised to find that the hawkers are showing desperation to return to space from where they had been evicted. We are not taking this lightly and may need to take timely and appropriate action. We can't sit idle and watch streets being filled up by unwanted hawkers," he said. Similarly, Ghosh felt the parking space on Bertram Street and Humayun Place should always be left free for car owners. Ghosh further said that unless police pushed back the sellers who had forcibly set up stalls on roads in and around New Market by a specified timeframe, members of his union would take to the streets to protest against the encroachment, violating the TVC order. "We will wait and watch till a specified time limit. After that, if we still find hawkers taking over carriageways, we will do whatever we need to do to compel the errant vendors to comply. Police, too, need to take responsibility if they fail to push back the hawkers," Ghosh said. A KMC official said that along with police, efforts were being made to maintain a continuous vigil on the New Market hawking hub. "We will need to adhere to the Town Vending Committee order, and monitor the roads in and around New Market," said the official. However, the traders of SS Hogg Market are not ready to take the cops and the KMC seriously. "Even after assurance from the civic brass, encroachment has grown in the recent months. If this continues, we will be compelled to go for a bigger movement," said Ashok Gupta, president of the traders' body.