The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has completed the first round of survey on hawkers at various zones in the city. The civic body has been conducting surveys of hawkers at various hawking hubs in different city markets since the past two weeks.
After instructions from chief minister Mamata Banerjee, the civic body was gathering data on the hawkers in New Market, Gariahat and Hatibagan. The CM had also formed a high-power committee that included the mayor as the chairman. While the town vending committee would look after the day-to-day affairs while the high power committee would be responsible for overseeing the survey process.
The KMC had also deployed around 150 trained officials to conduct the survey process. The trained officials in 40 teams were carrying out the task or recording the name, address, locations and other mandatory details of the hawkers.
According to mayor Firhad Hakim, after completion of the first round of survey in five zones, the civic body is now in the process of uploading the data. After the data is uploaded, the KMC would go for surprise visits to check whether the hawkers are genuine or the space is being run on rent. “Suppose someone is running a dala on rent and during the survey he skipped the office and shared his details to register himself. The surprise survey would be conducted to find out such cases,” pointed out the mayor. As reiterated by Mr Hakim, someone hawking by himself without holding any other source of income, would be considered as genuine.
After scrutiny, the report would then be sent to Nabanna, informed Mr Hakim.
As informed by the mayor, the civic body is also said to have identified a few spaces, where the hawkers would be able to keep their hawking articles at night. As per instructions of the CM, the storage spaces or godowns would also have arrangements for fire-fighting.