Both the capital city formation and the forthcoming Krishna Pushkarams have dealt a crippling blow to several BPL (below poverty line) families in the city as the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation has unleashed its bulldozers on the stifling thoroughfares to allow them to breathe free. The primary aim of the administration is to widen roads to allow the ever-increasing traffic move freely and help the lakhs of pilgrims visiting the city for the river festival to move around safely.
While the commitment to steer clear the encroachments is widely welcomed by a majority of people, the drive has ignited several social issues concerning the livelihood of the poor. The worst sufferers are hawkers who make a living by selling goods on roads. Some are pushed to the corner while others have been literally driven away. “Customers come to us because we are approachable. Now that I am in a corner hardly anyone visits us. They just move on in their vehicles,” says Durga Devi, a mango hawker at Ayodhyanagar.
She now shifted her fruit basket to the other side of the road (a pavement). Unmindful of the scorching Sun, she is busy hawking to earn a few hundreds before sunset. For many, who are putting up with the poor mango season, the all-of-a-sudden displacement is too hard to swallow.
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“There is a Supreme Court ruling that hawkers should be allowed to sell in areas where there is no people’s movement. The zone system did not take off as VMC was keen to send the hawkers to a faraway place where there is less human habitation. The road widening has severely affected the hawking community,” says CPI-M senior leader Donepudi Kasinath.
Says CPI leader D. Sankar: “Equally, middle-class customers, who used to buy from hawkers as the price is affordable, are the worst sufferers. As the hawkers are not in the vicinity, they are forced to go to nearby shopping malls. They will have to shell out more money.”
There are around 10,000 hawkers at various places feeding around four to five members in each family. “It is the responsibility of the Government or the civic authority to show them an alternative place.”
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Mr. Kasinath said as per the guidelines, the hawkers should be given identity cards but the corporation is yet to issue them. The drive is so intense that several well-established restaurants, tea and juice stalls, automobile workshops and even unauthorised temples have been razed
The corporation has already served notice at Rajarajeswaripet announcing the demolition drive and the bulldozers will head towards the locality in a day or two. Many political leaders questioned the prudence of the corporation which let these establishments thrive for several years.