Cuttack: The municipal corporation has decided to take up construction of vending zones at six locations in the city.
The Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) had estimated a project cost of Rs 4 crore for development of the targeted vending zones and allocated Rs 1 crore for it in its budget for 2018-19.
Municipal commissioner Bikash Ranjan Mohapatra told The Telegraph on Thursday that detailed project report for the six vending zones had already been sent to the State Urban Development Authority (Suda) for approval.
To regulate hawking on streets, the municipal corporation's town vending committee had identified 24 locations for construction of vending zones. Initially, the vending zones were planned at 12 of the 24 locations found suitable after feasibility study.
"But no objection certificates (NOCs) were available for only six locations as the land belonged to either the urban department or the revenue department," Mohapatra said.
"NOCs for other locations involved a cumbersome process as the land belonged to either the irrigation department or the public works department or some other department. So we decided to start off with construction of vending zones in six locations," Mohapatra said.
"The locations had since been vetted by the traffic management committee," he said. Orissa High Court had formed the committee to resolve traffic problems in Cuttack. The police commissioner heads the committee.
Sources said the vending zones would be constructed at Swargadwar near Panchamukhi Hanuman Mandir (Khapuria), CDA market complex (College Square), City Hospital (Jail Road), Cantonment Police Station (Ring Road), Nimpur and Petanala Chakh (Sector 6, CDA).
Deputy commissioner of the CMC Shyam Sundar Sethi said around 30 shops would be constructed in each vending zone with adequate space for parking and movement of buyers. "For stationary vendors each shop will be 2.4m X 1.2m and each mobile vendors will be allotted space measuring 1.2m X 1.3m," Sethi said.
A list of 3,463 street vendors have been approved during a biometric survey conducted in all the 59 wards. The allotment of space to vendors will be made according to the targeted vending zones's plan of action to regulate, relocate and rehabilitate the street vendors.
"The vending zones are expected to address the long-standing issues of the street vendors for their proper rehabilitation," said advocate Pravat Ranjan Dash, a specially nominated member of the targeted vending zone.
