The civic body on Tuesday conducted drives in four places in an attempt to move street dwellers from footpaths and under flyovers to homeless shelters.

Such drives have been conducted earlier as well. But the Kolkata Municipal Corporation has rarely conducted simultaneous drives on so many stretches — Gariahat to Ballygunge Phari, Hazra to Gopalnagar, Mullick Bazar to Beckbagan and the Park Circus seven-point crossing to Beckbagan.

By the end of Tuesday, a 50-year-old woman living on a pavement near Mullick Bazar was the lone person who agreed to shift. She was taken to a shelter near Chingrighata.

A KMC official said 168 people who were living on pavements were relocated. “Most of them left the stretches on their own; some had other places to move to.”

Most footpath dwellers left their belongings behind and moved from the raided stretches as the teams took away their belongings — utensils, wood planks, cartons, garments, blankets and other items.

“We conducted drives on four stretches. We will continue the drives on these stretches and extend them to other parts of the city,” said the official.

Using force to shift pavement dwellers would go against their rights, said a KMC official.

Repeated drives, every one or two days, may persuade them to shift, said the official.

Each team had police and representatives of NGOs who manage shelters for the homeless.

On a stretch of pavement near the Hazra Road-Harish Mukherjee Road intersection, an NGO representative told the women on the footpath that they would feel more secure at the shelter.

The women had concerns about their security in the shelters.

The Telegraph spoke to some of the footpath dwellers. Some of them said they did not have a home, some said they had homes away from Calcutta, but they were not big enough to house a large family.

A man in his 30s, who was living on the pavement near Gopalnagar, said his mother and other relatives live in Sandeshkhali, North 24-Parganas.

“The space was insufficient for my family. I have my wife and three children. My wife and I drive vans and pick up plastic bottles. My children go to a free English-medium school in Chetla. I have to stay in Calcutta for their education,” he said.

He said the couple did not earn enough to rent a place.

A woman from Bihar, who lives on a pavement near Hazra, said she earns around ₹7,000 a month working as a domestic help. “The money does not allow me to rent a place,” she said.

There are 11 shelters for the homeless in Calcutta.

KMC sources said many of the shelters have vacancies.

The shelters provide two to three meals a day. There are bathrooms, beds, blankets and small storage spaces.

“We are not evicting them. We are trying to clear Calcutta’s pavements of footpath dwellers. We want to shift them to the nearest shelters,” said the official.

The KMC team that visited Gariahat faced resistance from those living under the Gariahat flyover, near Ekdalia. “No one agreed to shift. We have removed their belongings,” said the official.