Fashion Street association seeks fire safety gadgets

PUNE: The MG Road Hawkers and Pathari Association has demanded that the Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) provide “proper” shelters and fire safety equipment at the Fashion Street market.

On Monday, around 300 hawkers and traders took out a morcha against the eviction notice issued by the board over fire safety issues.

MV Akolkar, president of the hawkers association, who led the march, met board’s president Rajiv Sethi and chief executive officer (CEO) DN Yadav. “As per the agreement signed in 1997, the board is supposed to provide proper shelter and fire safety equipment. Besides, it is the board’s responsibility to collect garbage from the market. We have tabled all these issues before the board authorities and urged them not to take arbitrary action against us,” Akolkar told TOI.

A special board meeting held last week decided to take action against illegal hawkers at the market. The board issued a public notice directing stall owners to get fire safety equipment and reduce stall size to the original earmarked space based on the agreement.

Akolkar said it is the duty of the board to take action against illegal hawkers. “However, the board didn’t pay heed to it. As a result, more hawkers started operating in the market illegally. Now, we don’t understand how the board can ask us to remove these stalls” he said.

Yusuf Khan, vice-president of the association, said it is unfortunate to see the board’s harsh stance. We request to the board to follow the agreement signed by then president Brigadier Mammen Mathew.”

Brigadier Sethi, however, made it clear that the PCB will not back out of its decision and will go ahead with its plan.


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