DNA: Hawking policy is a poll stunt: Activists: November 03, 2008

 

The state government may have finally moved its hand to act after dragging its feet on the hawkers issue for years together, but residents associations and activists are still not assured about the sincerity of the state to come up with a feasible solution.

Calling the move a political stunt,  Dr V Sangole, Pestom Sagar’s Advanced Locality Management (ALM) said, “They are addressing the issue as elections are nearby.

Hawkers are now no more than just a socio-economic problem; they are also vote banks, and politicians play them up during the elections. They don’t want to solve the problem. They lack the sincerity and conviction required to do so.”

In the new hawker policy, the state government envisages that a survey of all the hawkers who would be registered at the respective wards and central level. To ensure that no encroachments take place, a police team of around 400 police officials will be dedicated for the work. In a first of its kind, the state also plans to provide for space for hawkers in housing societies.

“How do they even plan to have a hawker in a society? That will ensure that people from outside also come and hang through the day. Where will the privacy of the society go?” questions Sangole. “People from outside will create a nuisance and obviously hawkers sitting to do business will think of having a moral high ground and stop them from doing the same,” he adds. Activists feel that the authorities are not earnest in their approach to resolve the issue.

Anil Bhatia, member Marine Drive Residents Association (D Road), said, “To begin with the states policies are flawed on the hawker solution. There is no walking space for pedestrians. There is no right for any hawker, under the guise of livelihood, to restrict my space to walk.”

Stating that it was this inability of the authorities to provide proper infrastructure that was creating the problem, he said, “If you do not create infrastructure, people are bound to face problems.”

Citing an example of the overloaded railway system, Bhatia said that people are bound to injure themselves when they pile up over one another and still end up hanging half outside. “Read any paper and you will get to know that there are many cases of people getting hurt and even deaths as they have to walk on roads because footpaths are encroached,” he added.

Residents instead demand a proper place for hawkers and a hawker plaza. “Societies can have hawkers inside them that have that kind of space. Either the society can look after them or the hawkers ensure cleanliness. But the question is how many such societies do we have that have this kind of space. Aren’t they already choking on space due to the parking crunch,” questions Bhatia.

Many residents also question the state’s policy of dragging its feet on redevelopment of municipal markets. “They are doing a good thing in having their own police to check the encroachment by hawkers, but what we do not understand is why they haven’t developed the municipal markets.

Having hawkers in societies is bizarre and nonsense. They should be instead given space in municipal markets. No society has that kind of space,” said Shyama Kulkarni of H/West Ward Citizens Trust.

“What the local bodies need to understand is that they need to have a policy to tackle the manifold increase in the population. Even when we talk of hawking plazas we do not mean that they sprout in every gully and street. There needs to be a dedicated space for them,” said Bhatia.

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