Monday, January 9, 2012

Dinesh Kamath's Editorial (Hawkers, residents and CIDCO) that was published in Newsband


Hawkers, residents and CIDCO
There are some residential areas in Navi Mumbai which are become hawkers' paradise. Here you will find roadside vendors at every nook and corner. These hawkers prove to be a pest for the residents. The residents do complain to the authorities who in turn just fail to take any action against these hawkers.

It is true that Navi Mumbai is the most well planned city. 'City and Industrial Development Corporation' (CIDCO) developed it. But just developing an ideal city is not enough. The city has to be maintained properly. This CIDCO has failed to do. It could not prevent some regions in the city from turning into hawkers' paradise. Here you find vendors and hawkers occupying almost all the footpaths. In such places, old people particularly find it difficult to walk on the road as the vehicles move fast and there is hardly any space with cars and two-wheelers parked on the road. It is the pedestrians particularly who feel harassed because of this illegal occupation since not even a single inch on footpath is left for people to walk. There is everyone on footpath from vegetable vendors, chicken and mutton sellers and fish sellers, and also those who sell clothes perfumes and stationery.
The chicken and mutton shops are operating in open and they stand on the nerves of many residents who are just fed up of them. These residents find such type of hawkers a total nuisance. These sellers of non-vegetarian stuffs simply throw away the waste all around and this attracts stray dogs. This leads to health hazards. Also there is danger of pedestrians getting bitten by these dogs.

CIDCO is aware of this mess created by chicken, meat and fish shops but till now it has not been able to provide relief to the residents. Why can't CIDCO construct a proper market place where all these illegal hawkers can be shifted for them to sell their stuffs and thus make them vacate the footpaths for the pedestrians to move freely? Inability of CIDCO to tackle these hawkers is encouraging these hawkers. CIDCO's inaction has instilled confidence in them and they continue pursuing their trades illegally at wrong places.
People of these areas should also cooperate. They should also organize themselves and firmly decide not to purchase anything from these hawkers. These hawkers then automatically will go away. They will no more rule the streets.

Many of these hawkers are those people whose lands were taken away by CIDCO at a throwaway price when the city was planned. CIDCO promised to give them alternative land but failed to keep the promise. Now these people are forced to earn their daily bread by selling their goods on footpaths. So here again CIDCO is to be blamed.
Now it is the duty of CIDCO to come up with a solution to this problem and thus do justice to both residents and hawkers. When will CIDCO do it?

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