From canning street to Behala, Alipore zoo to science city, KMC clears 800 spots in 2 days

KOLKATA: The hawker pushback and encroachment removal drive that started on Tuesday intensified further on Wednesday with more civic officials and cops hitting the streets with bulldozers and payloaders to raze all permanent and semipermanent illegal structures on roads and pavements in several parts of the city.
According to a source at Lalbazar, the joint KMC-KP team carried out drives in at least 40 different stretches in the city, removing hawkers and encroachments from both the pavements and carriageways.
Till Wednesday evening, around 800-odd micro-spots have been reclaimed, claimed sources. A day after Salt Lake set the example, bulldozers were employed in at least two places in the city.
Shocked hawkers near Behala Pathakpara and Science city found giant machines mowing through their wares with none of the onlookers remembering anything of similar nature since Operation Sunshine a little less than three decades ago.
A total of 108 hawkers were served notices or penalized and 23, most in Gariahat, are likely to face petty cases against them.
On Wednesday morning, police and the civic team began the drive against hawkers and shopkeepers occupying pavements in various parts of Kolkata, including areas such as Strand Road (approach to Howrah bridge), Canning Street, Park Street,New Market and its adjoining areas, Behala, Alipore zoo, New Alipore, Rabindra Sadan area, Bagbazar, Hatibagan, Entally, College Street and Anandapur. Many items were seized, with trucks removing the semi-permanent structures and dumping them near police stations. Both Lalbazar and KMC headquarters indicated that the operation wo-uld continue.
Kolkata Police commissioner Vineet Goyal said: “The operation will continue. Illegal hawkers occupying sidewalks will be removed.” Goyal himself visited New Market on Wednesday evening. He also took stock of the situation at the DC (Central) office, with senior officers in tow.
Hawkers whose shops were remo-ved from sidewalks or roads on Wednesday expressed anger. Arpana Das, who had been running a shop in Behala for a long time with her husband, tearfully questioned: “What will we eat now? We have no other source of income. This shop was everything. It supported our household and our daughter’s education. What will we do now?” Many others also felt helpless after losing their shops. Some accused the police of being “overactive”.
Two consecutive days of eviction drives at Jadubabu’s Bazar by local cops helped to clear up the illegal encroachments by hawkers. Plastic sheets almost disappeared along both flanks of Paddapukur Road as well. “It was almost like a competition between the shop owners and the hawkers, which made the pavement narrower to such a level that only one person could walk through it,” said Manish Barot, a customer who came on Wednesday morning to buy fruits from there.
He is now very happy to find that the major parts of the pavements are now being cleared.
The drive has turned into a catand-mouse game between the cops and the illegal encroachers at Jadubabu’s Bazar. Many of them shifted their extra stocks, which were usually kept on pavements earlier, to some other places. “I shifted most of my items to my Debendra Ghosh Road’s home after the two consecutive drives,” said Vishal Yadav, who has a miscellaneous shop on pavement.