Kolkata: Traders in New Market and Chowringhee are upset over the growing encroachment by hawkers on roads in these areas, not only blocking traffic but also affecting their buisness.“We fail to understand why the KMC and police are silent on the issue when the chief minister spoke against encroachments around New Market. We will wait for a specific time and then will be compelled to take to the streets,” said SS Hogg Market Traders’ Association president Ashok Gupta.The association has submitted a memorandum to the KMC and Lalbazar, stating the traders’ helplessness amid the growing hawker encroachment, which has been gobbling up space on major roads around New Market. Traders doing business in Chowringhee have also written to the civic brass and senior officers at Lalbazar, seeking protection for more than 100 businesspersons from the hawker menace.Around five weeks ago, chief minister Suvendu Adhikari made it clear that “nobody had the right to encroach upon pavements and roads”, naming the area around New Market among the most encroached-upon localities in the city. KMC and police subsequently launched a drive to clear hawkers from areas near the Grade-I heritage market but vendors are back on their spots on Hogg Street, Bertram Street, Humayun Place, Lindsay Street and Chowringhee Place again. “Hawkers are increasingly encroaching on the carriageways on Humayun Place, Chowringhee Place, Bertram Street and where not. They are not even sparing the pavements. Our business is suffering the most as the civic administration and police are acting as silent spectators,” said Chowringhee Traders Association general secretary Brij Bhusan Tiwari.“The CM made it clear that pavements are for pedestrians, and no one has the right to forcibly encroach on them. New Market hawkers have been told multiple times to mend their ways, but they haven’t. On the contrary, there has been an influx of hawkers who currently occupy more than half the road. This has to stop,” conceded a civic official.Adhikari particularly referred to encroachments in and around New Market, where he said even motorcycles could barely move. On May 19, the SS Hogg Market Traders’ Association sent a letter to the CM, congratulating him on assuming office and making a fervent plea to stop the hawker menace around the 152-year-old heritage market. “In the letter, we wrote about the encroachment on KMC-allotted car parking areas and hawkers leaving behind their goods wrapped in combustible plastic at night, turning the market vulnerable to fire,” said Association general secretary Uday Kumar Shaoo.
