Legal Action
With the politicians dilly-dallying, the matter rolled on to the courts as public interest litigation. In 1996, Kolkata High Court asked the state government to submit a detailed report on pavement encroachment. In 1998, another case demanding rehabilitation of hawkers was moved in the court. In 2003, the high court asked the state government to state its stand on hawkers. In 2005, the state government informed the high court that a uniform policy on rehabilitation of hawkers was underway. In 2007, the high court found that its 1996 order was not implemented.
Commenting on a petition filed by environmentalist Subhas Dutta in 2004, the division bench of Chief Justice V.S. Sirpurkar and Soumitra Sen observed in 2006, that the hawker menace was growing like cancer. It was impossible for people to walk on the roads, forget about footpaths.
The advocate general informed the high court that the state government had drawn out a plan regarding the hawkers. The highlights of the plan were earmarking of hawker free zone, creating some hawking zones, setting time limits for hawking, banning erection of permanent structures, keeping two thirds of pavement free of hawkers, replacing polythene sheets with colourful umbrellas, removing of hawkers from 50 yards (46 m) of crossings, and issuing licences to existing hawkers only.
Read more about this topic: Hawkers In Kolkata
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