Hawkers across the city were put on notice on Friday, and many said they were apprehensive about their future.

After chief minister Suvendu Adhikari spoke about prioritising pedestrians’ rights over the city’s pavements, many footpath stall owners said they would follow rules even if tightened, but urged the government not to evict them.

They have been fearful since the BJP government came to power and eviction drives were carried out near railway stations.

Suvendu’s stern message to hawkers only intensified those fears, they said.

“The last government drew a yellow line on pavements demarcating one-third of the width and asked hawkers to remain within it. If the new government wants to reduce the space further, we will follow that too. I urge the government not to evict us,” said a hawker on Bertram Street, where several stalls have come up on the road.

The state’s street vending rules, framed in 2018, say that hawkers cannot set up stalls on any road.

Shaktiman Ghosh, leader of the Hawker Sangram Committee, said Suvendu’s remarks appeared targeted at hawkers violating rules. “We, at the Hawker Sangram Committee, never support hawkers who set up stalls on roads. We have always protested against such hawkers,” Ghosh said.

“We had been asking the previous government for quite some time that hawkers should be removed from 50 metres of 58 major intersections, but this was never implemented,” he added.

Debashis Das, another leader of the committee, said if the government began evicting hawkers who were following rules, they would resist such action. “We will ask hawkers to follow rules, but the government should also adhere to the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014,” Das said.

The central Act was intended to protect hawkers’ livelihoods while also regulating them. It mandated the formation of a town vending committee, empowered to take action against errant vendors.

The committee functioned with assistance from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC).

It was not clear to hawker leaders whether the vending committee was still functional, since the state government had dissolved the KMC board.

Manish Shaw, 42, who sells soft toys at Humayun Place, said street vending was their only source of income. “We have families to support, and many of us are worried about what will happen if a payloader comes and demolishes our stalls,” Shaw said.

“We have seen hawkers being evicted from railway stations using payloaders. We are very afraid. If something like that happens to us, where will we go?” he said.

A hawker in Gariahat said they would discuss the possible consequences of Suvendu’s message. “We heard what the CM said. Hawkers will meet to discuss the way forward.”

Hawkers at the Oberoi Grand Arcade said they had anticipated such action. They had removed frames that extended beyond their stalls. “We removed them last week,” said a hawker in the arcade.