Darjeeling Municipality to rehabilitate hawkers
Posted by barunroy on June 3, 2008
DARJEELING, June 2: The Darjeeling Municipality has decided to remove hawkers from the town and rehabilitate them in the periphery areas from 8 June onwards. The stalls along JP Sharma road, NB Singh road, Nehru road and the vegetable vendors in front of the G Building of the Municipality will be removed to free the town from congestion. “No specific area has been allocated to rehabilitate the hawkers but we can only provide space in the periphery areas which the hawkers are not willing to accept,” stated Mr Pemba Tshering, chairman, Darjeeling Municipality.
The decision has hit the hawkers hard, they have completely refused to budge from their present locations.
“There is no other place more profitable than these sites. No customer would travel all the way to Ghoom or Lebong to buy goods from us. It is unjust and we will be deprived of our livelihood,” said Mr Dilip Pradhan, secretary of the Hawkers’ Union, Darjeeling.
The hawkers have already cut down on the space they use on the roads to display their wares. “Earlier our shops extended to about two feet on the road but now we have reduced it to one foot. The municipality can work on widening the space of the road in these locations instead of removing us,” said Mr Basant Chettri, a stall owner at Orient Line.
“We will not create any trouble and will follow every norm and rule set by the municipality if it allows us to trade from here. Our families sustain on this business,” added another stall owner, Mrs Buddhimaya Sarki. The Darjeeling Municipality’s decision has raised the obvious question of who allowed the hawker’s to establish their shops in the first place. “These people have been holding stalls in the streets since ages. It seems that the administration has suddenly woken up to this fact. Didn’t they think of this problem when they were accepting salamis from these hawkers,” questioned Mrs Khudu Pradhan, president of the Pathpasal Sangh. [The Statesman]
