(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Ny residents are opposed to hawkers on footpath in their neighbourhood.It is A city that has for decades beckoned migrants from all over the country many of who land up in Mumbai with just a bag filled with bare necessities and hopes for a better future. They sleep on the footpaths railway overbridges platforms or occupy any empty space.
Gradually with the help of contacts they get odd jobs or set up a small ‘business’ on the footpath. Mumbai’s pavements — at least the ones that are not dug up by the civic authorities — provide an ideal platform for hawkers to vend their wares and there are any numbers of buyers willing to bargain and buy stuff from them.
Many residents of Mumbai are opposed to hawkers on footpath or at least on pavements in their neighbourhood. They suffer from the ‘nimby’ syndrome — not in my backyard — and are not unduly bothered if hawkers sell cheap stuff along pavements that are away from their homes and offices.
Hawking on pavements has been a contentious issue in Mumbai and the local body the state and central governments and the high court and the Supreme Court — besides citizens groups and activists for and against hawkers — have been engaged for years in hammering out a solution. The fact remains that millions of Mumbai commuters and motorists rushing home from their offices find it extremely convenient to buy fruits vegetables groceries and other daily necessities from hawkers — who sell fresh stuff — instead of taking a diversion to a shopping mall or a supermarket.
Indeed the most effective manner to tackle the problem is for consumers to boycott hawkers who will then be forced to seek alternative avenues or perhaps relocate to some other city. But that never happens as buyers continue to patronise hawkers even those selling fast food on pavements.
Food vendors provide inexpensive meals to workers and the poor who can never afford to enter any of the fancy restaurants near their work place. In the absence of the government setting up hygienic outlets which can be given on daily rents to such vendors people are forced to buy eatables from hawkers in busy commercial hubs including Nariman Point Bandra-Kurla complex and other places.
With hundreds of thousands of people earning their livelihood from this profession it becomes difficult — especially for elected officials — to evict them from pavements. And while political parties sympathise with residents who complain about the nuisance created by hawkers — the noise and the untidy surroundings with garbage piling up every day — they are unable to back those demanding strict action. Of course hawkers are also a source of revenue for corrupt bureaucrats — including civic inspectors and police officials — who fleece them regularly. Local goons also demand their share of the profits from hawkers.
The Shiv Sena-controlled Bombay Municipal Corporation recently launched a ‘survey’ of hawkers registering them in a move that could regularise thousands of vendors. But the Sena’s rival the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) tried a unique method to protest the move.
Some MNS activists set up stalls outside the home of municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte in the posh Carmichael Road in south Mumbai. And within hours the police came and cleared them. The message the MNS wanted to send was that top politicians and bureaucrats often back the cause of hawkers but when these people set up shop outside their homes they do not tolerate the nuisance. A classic case of ‘nimby’ behaviour indulged in by the powerful. — nithinkhaleejtimes.com For more news from Khaleej Times follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/khaleejtimes and on Twitter at khaleejtimes Follow khaleejtimes -->
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