Parking spaces across New Town are disappearing as hawkers are setting up stalls in designated parking zones across all three action areas.
The stalls, some of which also occupy bicycle tracks and carriageways of the roads and streets of the township, are hard to miss.
Many hawkers have rendered the designated bicycle tracks and paved walkways useless.
Now, hawkers are setting up their vans in the parking areas with bamboo and
plastic structures to sell their wares.
The dangers posed by these structures came to fore multiple times when fires broke out at several spots, including in front of the Sukhobrishti Housing Complex and near the Unitech Crossing.
Last week, The Telegraph drove around New Town and spotted several stalls that have cropped up in many parking zones from where agencies deployed by the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) collect parking fees from motorists.
The parking lot in and around the Axis Mall in Action Area I, around 1.5km away from the New Town bus stand, is one of the busiest in the area.
There are several places in this area where ropes are being used by hawkers, who have set their stalls in the parking lot, to prevent vehicles from parking there.
There are several vans selling vegetables and fast food in the parking zone near the Aircraft Museum next to the New Town police station, opposite the Tata Medical Centre, in the evening.
Stalls made of bamboo and plastic sheets block bicycle tracks, take up walkways and spill onto the carriageway of main roads behind Nazrul Tirtha in front of the Rail Vihar Housing Complex and in front of Greenfield Heights.
A senior NKDA official said they have started a rehabilitation drive and more than 500 hawkers who used to peddle their wares from pavements have been relocated to temporary markets across New Town.
According to the official, several hawkers have shifted the temporary market complex behind the Rail Vihar housing complex.
The NKDA has also built hangars in at least four places including one near the Candor building in Action Area I, near Baliguri behind DLF II, near the Unitech bus stop and another near Ecospace and the TCS office in New Town.
Around 50-odd hawkers who mainly used to operate food stalls have been shifted to the hangar near the Candor building.
Hawkers who had set up stalls in the service lane in front of the Sukhobrishti Housing Complex in Action Area III have also been shifted.
“Despite a section of hawkers getting shifted we are now seeing new hawkers who are again settling on the service road,” said Hrituparna Chakraborty, a resident of DLF New Town Heights, a housing complex opposite the Sukhobrishti Housing Complex.
A senior NKDA official said that they have initiated a process to start the New Town Town Vending Committree and are working to rehabilitate such hawkers.
“We already have a list of hawkers from each area,” said the official.
