FLAMING ROW: Food cooked and served piping hot on open stoves on the pavements — a common sight on the city’s roads, especially in office zones. A Telegraph picture

Cooking on the pavement by food vendors may soon be banned in Calcutta.

The Supreme Court ban on open cooking in New Delhi — imposed last week — has prompted the Calcutta Municipal Corporation to mull a similar prohibition here.

“We are considering a ban on lighting ovens on pavements by food hawkers,” mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya said on Wednesday. “The practice has to stop for the sake of the city’s environment.”

The hawkers, however, will not be driven away, he added. “They can bring cooked items and heat them before serving.” The authorities are yet to decide on the fuel that could be used for heating the food items.

Of the 2.75 lakh-odd hawkers in Calcutta, food hawkers number over 1.7 lakh. According to a civic estimate, more than 1.25 lakh ovens are lit daily on the pavements. Only 25 per cent of the food hawkers use kerosene stoves; the rest depend on wood, cow dung or coal for fuel.

The pockets where open cooking is rampant are Writers’ Buildings, India Exchange Place, RN Mukherjee Road, Camac Street, AJC Bose Road, Shyambazar, Hatibagan, Burrabazar, Sealdah, Bhowanipore, Park Circus, Behala and Jadavpur.

“Since Bengalis like eating food hot, what options do the hawkers have other than cooking in the open?” asked Hawker Sangram Committee leader Shaktiman Ghosh. But he, too, agreed that “some curbs need to be imposed on the hawkers who can serve pre-cooked items after heating them”.

A civic conservancy official pointed out that former municipal commissioner Asim Barman in 1999 had issued a circular banning cooking on the pavements. It has never been strictly enforced.

Back-out: Hawkers in several areas have backed out of their commitment to the civic body that they would occupy only one-third of the pavement for business. The entire pavements in these areas have been encroached on.

Mayor Bhattacharyya admitted that “hawkers in a number of pockets have not kept their word”.