Calcutta: Each day's delay in implementing the recently published rules for hawkers means more vendors are settling down on pavements, officials said.

The municipal affairs department wrote to all municipal corporations and municipalities on August 9 asking them to implement the West Bengal Urban Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Rules 2018, sources in the government said. A copy of rules was sent with the letter.

But the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) is yet to begin the process of forming the town vending committee, which, as laid down by the rules, will draw up a list of hawkers and send it to the civic authorities.

The civic body will decide on issuing licences to hawkers based on the list.

"The delay in setting up the committee is only worsening the matter," a CMC official said. "The number of pavement-grabbing hawkers is increasing by the day. The longer we wait, more problems we will face in implementing the rules."

The official said the process of forming the panel had not yet begun. "An internal meeting will be held on September 4 to decide how to go about it. We will also try to fix a deadline for setting up the committee. The rules do not specify any deadline," the official said.

Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation mayor Sabyasachi Dutta said they had not yet received any letter from the municipal affairs department about the formation of the town vending committee.

The rules, which specify that hawkers will not be allowed to occupy more than one-third of the width of a pavement (see chart), come four years after the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act came into force. The central act empowers each state to frame its own rules to regulate street vendors.

A CMC official said the civic body had received around 62,000 applications from hawkers following chief minister Mamata Banerjee's announcement in March 2015 that street vendors would be given trade licences.

"Around 62,000 applications have been handed to us ," the official said.

"We sent the 62,000-odd applications to police who said they would compare them with the video footage they had recorded earlier. We are yet to hear from the police."

Officials fear that between then and now, the number of hawkers has increased manifold. "New hawkers are occupying new places on a regular basis," another official said.

A police officer said the number of hawkers had nearly doubled in Gariahat, New Market and Burrabazar over the past decade.

"One hawker 'sells' a part of the area he is occupying to another hawker at a high price," said the officer.

At Gariahat, tea stalls have come up in two corners of the four-point crossing. In New Market, the pavement facing the wall of Peerless Inn was empty even a year ago. Now several hawkers ply their trade on the sidewalk.

The act and the rules state that a town vending committee, which will include representatives of the government, police and vendors, will survey pavements and make a list of the hawkers in the areas under the respective civic bodies. All the members will be nominated.

VENDOR MANDATE

• Each civic body has to form a town vending committee
• The panel will conduct a survey and identify hawkers with the help of police and the local authorities 
• The committee will demarcate hawking and no-hawking zones
• Two-thirds of a pavement has to be left free for pedestrians
• Entry/exit of any shop or house cannot be blocked by hawkers
• A Calcutta Municipal Corporation official said they would meet on September 4 to discuss the formation of the committee