While the city allows cars to be parked on streets, it rushes to cruelly brand hawkers as encroachers
The hawkers' complex on Pondy Bazaar is a shame. It is a symbol of apathy and an example of bad planning. Instead of finding long term solutions, Chennai Corporation continues to pursue ad hoc and specious measures.
What is wrong with buildings such as the one in Pondy Bazaar? Why won't hawkers accept it, give up their ramshackle sidewalk structure, and leave the street? There are two issues: one is specific to the building in question and the other pertains to the larger plan for street vending and vendors in the city.
Street vending is related to foot falls and pedestrians. It flourishes in streets that connect a railway station and a bus stop; hawkers line up along the busy shopping street, in front of religious structures and other such places where people congregate.
How then could a matchbox-sized building in Pondy Bazaar, removed from the free-flowing pedestrian network, flourish? To cover up its bad decision, the Corporation, quite predictably, would blame the hawkers and resort to forceful eviction at a later stage.
A committee was constituted as early as in November 1988. Its aim was to identify permissible and as well as no-hawking zones in the city. Till 2001, this committee did not submit its report. When it did, there were problems with it and the report was challenged. Another committee was set up in 2002 and another report submitted in 2003. This report still forms the basis for many of Corporation's decision.
The report identified 49 no-hawking zones, which included Usman Road, Pondy Bazaar, Lattice Bridge Road, Purasawalkam Road, and the area opposite Egmore station. These are places where vending needs to be accommodated. Instead, the committee ordered an impractical and insensitive prohibition.
Licensing system and demarcation of vending areas were not properly studied. Sample this: the 2003 report suggested three alternative areas including the site occupied by a police station and a park for constructing building complexes to shift all the hawkers in T. Nagar.
Much has changed since 2003, there have been extensive national debates about planning for street vending; two national policies have been drafted; a central law to protect the livelihood of vendors is on the anvil. Chennai seems to be oblivious to these developments.
While the city allows cars to be parked on streets, thereby reducing the carriageway, it rushes to cruelly brand hawkers as encroachers. As a result, self-employed street vendors often face harassment and the threat of eviction.
The national policy on urban street vendors recommends that local bodies register street vendors, issue identification cards, and amend legislation to mitigate their vulnerability. The key proposal is to formulate Town Vending Committees at the ward level with vendor representation to identify areas for hawking. Chennai has overlooked these recommendations.
In contrast, cities such as Bhuvaneshwar have gone far ahead and created exclusive vending zones near areas frequented by vendors and rehabilitated more than 2,000 hawkers. Chennai Corporation has to first recognize vendors as an integral part of the city. Just as provisions are made for formal retail activities, spaces for vending too must be planned.
Keywords: street vendors, hawkers' complex, Chennai Corporation, urban planning
A very simple solution to this issue. People should STOP buying from these vendors
who occupy footpaths and cause nuisance to pedestrians. The people who buy from these vendors are responsible for this mess. They want to buy cheap and at the same time they want ample space for free movement.
Vendors are encroachments because the pavements become their living room, dining room and toilet. And they attract stray dogs, cows and pigs around them. Citizens then have to share road space with cars and autos which then creates traffic and accidents. Get rid of all street vendors!
Hawkers are a menace. They take up road space, and pavement space making pedestrians walk on the road at the risk to their lives. They must be evicted from the road, if they are not willing to take up a stall in a designated area. It is an old fashioned view of the world to talk about hawkers needing space where there are footfalls. That works in a village, not in a metro. A metro needs an organized approach to hawking - which is provide space in a building and people who want to buy something should walk into the building to buy it.
I'm sorry but to compare cars with hawkers is simply ridiculous ! The pavements
belong to the people to walk on them and the roads to the people to drive cars on
them and not to people who wish to sell their wares. To criticize the effort of the
corporation like this would just be unfair. It has at least provided a solution to the
menace, that too at the expense of the exchequer. A man who is given something
for free ought not complain that he deserves better. Street vendors not only create a
nuisance by blocking of walking space they also often litter up the place. Eviction
seems cruel but the right of way of a pedestrian is i guess more crucial. Physically
challenged persons also, thanks to the crowding of roads by these hawkers often
find it impossible to navigate through.
I Live in Singapore, similar to street vendors in India, they have something called 'wet market' where the fresh produce/fish/meat were sold similar to our 'kothwaal chavaadi'.
Being a modern/advanced nation, Govt did not try to destroy them, they want to keep as integral part of the culture and society.
There are hunderds of modern malls and complexes in this state/city but Govt always keeps the traditional practices as symbol of culture.
But, they make sure they are never an hindrance to any day to day traffic/activities, areas are demarked and easily accessable.
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