How KMC's geo-tagging of genuine hawkers aims to solve 'ghost' issue in Kolkata

KOLKATA: Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), which on Friday began a survey of hawkers in the city, has decided to geo-tag or geo-fence “genuine” hawkers to a particular hawking zone. The step, said civic body seniors, was aimed at solving the chronic problem of ‘ghost hawkers’, which has made regulations and reclamation of urban public space near-impossible.
‘Ghost hawkers’, according to civic body sources, refers to those occupying hawking space in the city without figuring on a list of ‘genuine’ hawkers prepared by KMC in a 2015 survey.

In Gariahat, for example, the leader of a hawkers’ union said there were 2,100 hawkers running their businesses, but they did not have any records for 400 of them. During the last such exercise carried out two years ago in Gariahat, the Town Vending Committee (TVC) had come across scores of ‘ghost hawkers’. While a few hawkers had died, most of the others were found to have sold their space to someone else or had leased it against a hefty salaami and then collected rent.
In most other hawking zones in the city, it’s the same story: a certain proportion of hawkers simply do not exist on any records.
The KMC’s 2015 attempt, though incomplete, managed to identify around 60,000 ‘genuine’ hawkers in Gariahat, Hatibagan, New Market, several parts of the Central Business District, Behala and some other places. The figure has swelled, but no one is even hazarding a guess as to what the number of ‘genuine’ hawkers is, let alone how many of them are ‘ghosts’.
KMC’s latest effort at a hawkers’ survey aims to get a grasp of the numbers. Once they complete the survey and identify ‘genuine’ hawkers, the civic body’s plan is to issue them photo ID cards and vending certificates, linking those with each person’s Aadhaar details and tying them to a particular vending spot. This, said KMC sources, would curb uncontrolled hawker influx and prevent the sub-letting or sale of pavement space, often for lakhs of rupees.
This survey to identify genuine hawkers and fix the hawker count began in Gariahat on Friday, with mayor-in-council member Debasish Kumar — co-chairman of the Town Vending Committee — surveying some parts of the hawking zone.
On Monday, the survey will move to New Market, where an earlier attempt two years ago had been abandoned midway. As a prelude to the survey, mayor Firhad Hakim, along with ministers Aroop Biswas and Malay Ghatak, Kolkata Police commissioner Vineet Goel and municipal commissioner Dhaval Jain, visited New Market on Friday.