WHAT SHE SPOTTED...
...WHAT SHE MIGHT HAVE MISSED
Mamata Banerjee "noticed" in Bhowanipore the other day what Calcuttans forced to walk on roads rather than pavements have long seen and suffered: the inexorable hawker invasion of every inch of pedestrian space.
The chief minister said on Wednesday that she saw while driving past Jadu Babur Bazar how hawkers had encroached on pavements on both sides of the road. "The hawkers are now sitting on this side of the road too. There were no hawkers on this side. Earlier, hawkers were on that side only," she said.
Mamata didn't specify which flank of the pavement she had previously seen unoccupied, leading to speculation that she might have meant the pavement on the western side that goes towards Rabindra Sadan. "The pavement on the eastern side, along the Hazra-bound flank of Asutosh Mukherjee Road, has been occupied for many years. The hawkers on the pavement on the western side are more recent arrivals and many in number," said a resident of the area.
The chief minister was speaking at the inauguration of a community centre on Harish Mukherjee Road that is about 150 metres from her house on 30B Harish Chatterjee Street. "I am one of you. I travel through these roads everyday. Sometimes I move around to see whether the lights are proper or what is the condition of the roads," she said.
Some heard in Mamata's voice a touch of concern, even though belated, while others said they wouldn't be surprised if she showcased the proliferation of hawkers as an example of increased employment. Only a few days ago, the chief minister had suggested that youths should seriously consider telebhaja (fries) as an industry. She said she had seen people running telebhaja shops going on to buy or build multi-storey buildings.
While the proliferation of hawkers in a locality close to the chief minister's home has caught her attention, there is no mention of the many other streets from Gariahat to Hatibagan where pedestrians have been shut out from the pavements that belong to them. In some of these places, hawkers now block traffic and do business on the road.
As one approaches Gariahat, it gets worse. Some hawkers there own more than one stall, the space for which is called a dala. "The price of a dala (space for a table) is the highest in the Esplanade-New Market region. Gariahat and Hatibagan are next to the city centre in terms of price. Some people own more than one dala and rent them out. The main beneficiaries of the dala system are, of course, the local political leaders and the police," a source said.
Barring a few raids that have made little difference, no government - Left Front of Trinamul - has yet laid a finger on the hawker brigade. The Mamata government is, in fact, planning to virtually legalise hawkers. The municipal affairs department has organised a hawkers' convention in the city on March 13, where a plan to give hawkers ID cards is likely to be announced.
"To make the city tidy and beautiful, hawkers will be given identity cards. The cards will be issued by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. Hawkers need to fill in a form and submit it to the civic body or at the local police station. Cards will be issued after scrutiny," municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim said on Wednesday.
