The Hindu : Hawkers all over again at Rattan Bazaar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 19, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Hawkers all over again at Rattan Bazaar

By Saptarshi Bhattacharya

CHENNAI APRIL 17. Roadside vendors and hawkers have made a comeback at Rattan Bazaar and Flower Bazaar areas occupying nearly half of the road space, while the Police and the Chennai Corporation prefer to overlook the frequent traffic snarls and congestion caused due by them.

A tour of the area on Thursday revealed that the presence of the vendors has reduced the carriageway to more than half, forcing pedestrians to walk on the middle of the road. Buses and automobiles were left with very little space to ply leading to frequent bottlenecks during rush hour.

The vendors, mostly selling fruits, flowers, vegetables and a few consumer items such as bags, slippers and clothes, have created a semi-permanent base for their "shops" with brick and sand. Many of them have put up a shed or canopy as guard from the sun.

Some of the hawkers have even made the place their home, storing cooking utensils and other items alongside their "shops". Most of the shops were manned by women.

This was in violation of a Supreme Court order passed in 1996 which directed the Chennai Corporation to evict the encroachers from Rattan Bazaar Road, Evening Bazaar Road and NSC Bose Road and provide them alternate sites, said Usman Sait, President, Rattan Bazaar and China Bazaar Merchants' Association.

After a long legal battle, 794 hawkers along Evening Bazaar Road and NSC Bose Road were relocated to alternative sites along southern side of NSC Bose Road, eastern sides of Rattan Bazaar and Evening Bazaar Road, and Frazer Bridge Road.

The existing pavements were taken off and the roads were widened for free flow of traffic. This continued for some time till the Corporation decided to demarcate a portion of Evening Bazaar Road for parking of two-wheelers and cars. "Now, the parking lot has spread to almost the entire Evening Bazaar Road reducing the carriageway by half. This left our customers with very little space to walk into our shops. Added to that is the problem of encroachments. There are families living here and vending flowers and other articles," Mr. Sait said.

Fresh encroachments began since 1998 and there has hardly been any stern action by the Corporation since then, he added.

The police and the civic body are busy shifting responsibility to each other. The rules that govern the city had a grey area on who should be responsible for prevention of encroachments after a removal operation.

Enquiries with the Corporation officials revealed that they faced political interference during eviction. Some of the hawkers were enlisted for relocation after the Committee on Hawkers led by J.Kanakaraj, retired High Court judge, prepared a scheme for hawkers and submitted it to the High Court. The scheme is pending approval at the High Court.

The officials maintained that many of the vendors were unauthorised but enjoyed the backing of local politicians. "Many of the hawkers pay money to the local politicians so that they protect them from eviction.

These politicians put pressure on us not to remove them," said a Corporation official, on condition of anonymity.

Moreover, the Chennai City Municipal Corporation Act, does not provide for any penalty for the encroachers apart from empowering the Commissioner to remove them.

A proposal for an amendment to the relevant clauses of the Act has been passed by the Standing Committee on Taxation and Finance last month that would allow the civic body to remove the encroachments without serving them a notice and penalise them or proceed legally against them. It is likely to be placed before the Council this month, the official informed.

However, the onus was on the executive. The civic body did not need more teeth to prevent and regulate encroachments, only a proper system free of interference by politicians or vested interests, the official added.

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