A day after chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s meeting at Nabanna on the hawkers, instructing a host of initiatives to streamline hawking and curb encroachment of footpaths in city’s shopping hotspots, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation kicked off its survey today.
To begin with, a team of representatives of the civic body, including member-mayor in council for Hawkers’ Rehabilitation Scheme, Debasish Kumar, other officials of KMC and the city police visited Gariahat Market to conduct the survey as directed by the chief minister yesterday. The team, during the survey, also asked the hawkers to remove their articles and do business as per the space allotted to them on the footpath.
Another survey is to be conducted at New Market and near Grand Arcade to ascertain the number of hawkers at various business hubs in the city.
According to MMiC Debasish Kumar, to collect the information on the hawkers as a part of the survey, the civic body is distributing a form to the latter for being filled up and submitted. As informed by Mr Kumar, for now the survey would be carried out while any decision on the hawkers would be taken after the survey is conducted. In the evening, a meeting of the members of the committee formed by the CM, including mayor Firhad Hakim, was held at the KMC headquarters to conduct the next level of the survey.
Continuing with the crackdown on the alleged encroachment of footpaths, hawkers from the opposite footpaths near Roxy Cinema were asked not to keep their stocks at the pavements and remove their units.
Meanwhile, the KMC and the city traffic police plunged into action against illegal parking. A drive was carried out at Vivekananda Road in Jorabagan to remove illegally parked vehicles. A similar drive was seen at College Street and Shyambazar crossing, where illegally parked vehicles were brought to the local police stations.