KMC gears up for monsoons, holds meeting with stakeholders
With the forecast of a bountiful monsoon this year, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation held a high-level meeting with various stakeholders on preparedness for the upcoming rainy season.
After hawkers, the town vending committee (TVC) is now considering streamlining the shops that are occupying spaces on footpaths in the city. According to sources in the civic body, shops in several markets of the city are found with stocks occupying spaces outside the commercial units. This often takes away the spaces of footpaths, while the hawking stalls add to the woes making pedestrian movement difficult.
The step, as informed by sources in KMC, comes next to the implementation of the one-third rule. Under the rule, registered hawkers can do business on one-third of the footpath spaces leaving the two-thirds for pedestrians. “Owners are entitled to spaces till the walls of the shops. Spaces outside the shop belong to the KMC.
However, at some of the markets, it is the additional stocks outside the shops that occupy the footpath spaces. If the spaces occupied by the shops are cleared, there would be some more room for accommodating hawkers as per the one-third rule. The idea is, however, at an initial stage of consideration,” informed a source in the TVC.
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As claimed by source, after implementation of the pilot project of one-third rule in Gariahat, the system is now being followed in New Market. The TVC, the municipal corporation along with the city police has given time till this month for streamlining the hawkers of New Market to follow the rule.
A high-level meeting of the committee is to be held by the first part of February after which a decision on implementation of clearing occupied spaces by shops would be taken. The concept would first be implied at Hatibagan Market.
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