They may be working around the clock in air-conditioned environs but come lunch hour, Sector V heads to the streets downstairs. While some eat in the restaurants and cafes that dot the area, the majority of the workforce depends on the hawkers on the pavements dishing out a variety of cuisines, from chowmein to biryani, daal-bhaat to paratha-chicken curry.
Yet, situated as they are on the streetside, their standard of hygiene is, at best, dubious. There are two ways to deal with the problem — to relocate them to sanitised quarters and to improve their standards of hygiene.
Efforts are underway on both counts. The government has identified a plot of land in Sector V on which a multi-level parking lot will come up, of which the ground floor will accommodate a sizeable number of food vendors.
“The government has recently given us a few plots, of which one will be used to create a parking lot. It is a one-acre plot in CP Block, on Street 9. Around 100 hawkers can be accommodated on the ground floor, while the upper levels will be used for car parking. The DPR (detailed project report) is being drawn up. It will take a year and a half for the tender process to be over and construction to start,” said an official of Naba Diganta Industrial Township Authority (NDITA), the administrative body that governs Sector V.
The plot in CP Block earmarked by NDITA for a new parking lot cum streetfood court
The authority had similar plans of rehabilitation at another plot in AQ Block nearby. The ground floor of the structure that was built had 22,000 sq ft space with an open lawn, two toilets and a kitchen where the hawkers nearby were supposed to be shifted. But despite efforts since 2018, the official admitted that it could not materialise as the hawkers refused to budge from the pavements and move in. The parking lot in AQ Block, therefore, has come up without the food park and accommodates 600 cars.
The new parking lot is expected to house “almost 700 cars”. “It is more attractive in terms of location. The area has got extremely congested. So we expect hawkers to be more amenable to moving in here once the building comes up,” said the official.
A street vendor hands over a glass of sugarcane juice to a customer in Sector V
But even when that plan fructifies, it will house a fraction of the total number of hawkers. According to the latest NDITA survey, hawkers who have illegally encroached on pavements in Sector V now number about 900, up from the 700-plus doing business in the IT hub about a year ago. The official insisted that the number is now static as an agreement had been reached with the town vending committee that has been set up with representation from among the hawkers. “We have managed to keep the pavements on one side of the streets free for pedestrians while allowing them to do business on the other side,” he said.
Need for checks
That leaves the matter of ensuring the standard of the food that these hawkers are serving. The official pointed out that NDITA, being a civic administrative body, lacked the wherewithal to monitor the food quality. “We request the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to hold camps to check their licences and required compliances,” he said.
A hawker puts on a mask and cap while being counselled on food safety by students of Institute of Advance Education and Research in Sector V (Right) Office-goers at lunch on the streetside in Sector V on Tuesday
FSSAI, which has its regional office in DN Block in Sector V, held a training camp for street vendors from across Calcutta in end-March, said an official. “We had written to the urban development and municipal affairs department on March 10.
The State Urban Development Agency arranged for the attendance of 523 food vendors at our food safety training camp,” said an official. But they do not do site visits as food safety checks for units below a turnover of Rs 25 crore, he said, were in the state government’s purview.
An effort to improve their standard through on-spot interactions was made last month by the Institute of Advance Education & Research, which is housed in The Chatterjee Group’s Bengal Intelligence Park in Sector V. Over a period of one week, the institute sent out its students to talk to hawkers and create awareness about various hygienic aspects of their day-to-day culinary practices. The drive, in conjunction with the NDITA and the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, spanned the lanes around the institute as well as FD Block, specifically the hawkers adjacent to FD Park, reaching out to about 200 hawkers.
Said Arunava Narayan Mukherjee, director of the institute, whose brainchild the drive was: “There is no denying that Sector V is being fed by these people.
While skill development is taking place through organised training for the workers walking the gleaming corridors of IT firms and academic institutions, there is an insidious disparity of exclusion when it comes to the hands running the pavement economy. Training should not be the monopoly of corporate bodies; otherwise it creates a training divide, which, in this case, is resulting in a hygiene divide as well between food served in restaurants and in the streets. The Sector V workers are running our digital economy. How many of them eat regularly in established restaurants? These food vendors are custodians of public health.”
In order to plug the gap created by leaving the hawkers out of the training umbrella, the institute trained 25 of its students as per the FSSAI code and sent them out in groups to the streets. They were drawn mostly from those pursuing the hospital management course.
By bringing them out of their classrooms and in contact with the hawkers to pass on their knowledge, this initiative also foregrounds a more inclusive model of human potential and development through engagement, empathy, and impact on the ground, that enabled social and emotional learning, that is a key component of holistic development, as envisaged by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the director pointed out.
On the field
Lagna Shreya Sengupta, a firstyear student, is a regular customer at the food stalls that she went to for the drive. “You can get your stomach full for Rs 70,” said the girl who stays in Kestopur. “The shops try their best to keep their operations clean but often it is not enough,” she conceded. Lagna Shreya had stomach issues a month ago and since then, tries to bring home-cooked food for lunch, keeping her pavement samplings to fruits and items from a few stalls that she trusts.
During the drive, while many of the stall-owners were ready to lend an ear, they were shooed away at a few crowded ones, she said.
The two main challenges concerning hygiene at these stalls that they identified were dust and sweat. “Vehicles ply by, puffing up the dust from the streets that settles on the plates. And with no electric connection, there is no fan as well. We asked them to keep all the food containers covered and wash their hands frequently as the cloth they wipe their hands in also gets dirty, thereby contaminating the utensils they handle,” she said.
But there were reassuring findings too. “They use packaged ingredients from branded manufacturers, from oil to spices,” said Koushambi Ganguly, a second-year student.
The source of water for the cooking, they told the students, was jars they purchased daily.
The students handed over surgical masks, gloves and caps to the vendors to use while serving customers.
But in this high summer, the students admit that much of their good-practice tips may have dripped out with the sweat. “We don’t have the resources to keep providing such kit or visit them regularly. But the first step of any training is creating awareness, which our students managed to do. Perhaps such initiatives can be taken elsewhere as well,” the director said.
Way of doing business
The hawkers claim they do enough. “The people who come to eat at our stalls work in big offices. If we dished out stale food, don’t you think word would have spread and we would have been booted out?” said Jiban Das, who runs a daal-bhaat kitchen.
He starts around 7am, offering roti-torkari breakfast to those on the night shift. By 10.30am, he is ready to serve lunch to those who prefer to eat before starting their shifts or pack food on their way in. There is no thali system. One can order from two types of vegetables, daal, potato fries, papad and chutney, along with steamed rice. “We avoid using garlic and dry chilli in summer. Rich food goes bad quickly and also creates digestion problems,” said the 51-year-old, who lives in neighbouring Mahisbathan.
Iceboxes are also a help with regard to curd. Das sets curd twice a week in small earthen containers at home and brings the same over. While other unsold food items have to be discarded on site, he can take the unsold curd back.
Curd is also vital for Rajdeep Dutta, who sells south Indian dishes.
The vendors mostly bring cooked food. While Das comes with the roti-torkari early in the morning, the rice and vegetables come around 10.30am cooked from home.
Dutta brings the dosa batter from his Duttabad home along with a kilo of packaged curd, which he keeps in a fibre container lined with ice. “I cut it at 12noon when I open my shop. It usually gets over by 1.30pm, with Dahi Vada requiring generous portions.” He does miss five or six customers who seek the dish later but thinks it is better to refuse customers than have unsold food left over.
Another item at risk in summer are boiled potatoes. He says he brings three to four kilos.
As for the dust, Dutta tries his bestby splattering water on the stretch ofthe street that his stall faces at regular intervals.
He collects 30 litres of water from atap in Duttabad around 11am, after themorning queue thins. The water forcooking is purchased. “Many peoplehave (purifying) machines at home.They sell 10 litres at Rs 10,” he said.
Das rues the lack of a public waterfount in Sector V. “We buy water fromtankers that come.”
The heat has dented their salesby more than half. “No one wants tocome out of AC,” they say.
While shifting to a government allotted food court is perceived as a lossof business and opposed tooth andnail by hawkers, some like Dutta arefed up with the space crunch. “Withmore and more vehicles speeding by,my customers don’t even have spaceto stand and eat. If I get good space, Iwill move,” says the 40-year-old whoinherited the stall from his father.Such words would be music to theears of the NDITA authorities.