The town vending committee of Kolkata has decided to draw the yellow line on pavements in Hatibagan to mark the one-third portion within which street vendors have to restrict themselves, keeping the rest free for pedestrians, members of the committee said.
The line will also be drawn at the Moulali crossing to push hawkers 50ft from the intersection.
Earlier, the line was drawn in the Grand arcade and on pavements in Gariahat and the New Market area.
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) is drawing the line in an attempt to enforce the state government’s street vending rule that mandates that two-thirds of the width of pavements be kept free for pedestrians.
In almost all parts of Kolkata where the line has not been drawn, hawkers occupy half the width of pavements or even more than that. In the New Market area, where the line has been drawn, hawkers continue to occupy more than what has been allotted to them. There, hawkers have also occupied large portions of the roads.
“In a meeting of the town vending committee held last week, it was decided that the yellow line will be drawn in Hatibagan in the next phase. We will also draw the line in Moulali to mark 50ft from the crossing. Hawkers will not be allowed to set up stalls within 50ft of the crossing,” said a senior official of the KMC, who was present in the meeting.
Debashis Das, a hawker leader and a member of the town vending committee, said the committee has also decided that hawkers will not be allowed to set up stalls within 50ft of 58 busy intersections.
“Moulali is one such crossing,” Das said.
The committee has been empowered by the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, a central law, to penalise errant hawkers and also to take measures to protect their livelihood. Every town or city in the country must have its town vending committee.
The town vending committee should be made of association of street vendors, police, NGOs and officials of the local authority, among others.
“Once the yellow line is drawn in Hatibagan, all three traditional shopping hubs in the city will have space demarcated for hawkers. The line has already been drawn in Gariahat and New Market,” Das said.
The police and the KMC, along with members of the vending committee, will also conduct an awareness campaign at New Market this week to tell hawkers about the “one-third rule” and the significance of the yellow line.
The KMC had drawn yellow lines on pavements along Humayun Place, Lindsay Street, Bertram Street and Chowringhee Place. Barring Chowringhee Place, hawkers are following the rule in the New Market zone.
A KMC official said that during the awareness campaign, hawkers will be told to remove their stalls from roads as the street vending rules have barred vending, or hawking, on a road.
