2 weeks Ago By Mid-day
Frustrated by the lack of response from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to repeated complaints about hawkers occupying footpaths in their vicinity, residents of a housing society in Mahavir Nagar, Kandivli West, hired bouncers to keep the hawkers out. Our report stated that after complaints were lodged with the civic body, hawkers vacated the area. Then, like a boomerang, they were back when BMC vehicles left the vicinity.
Both footpaths adjacent to the building have been perpetually blocked, causing a huge inconvenience to residents. Housing society office-bearers stated that they had employed bouncers for a fortnight after which they will assess the situation and employ them again if need be. While the BMC insisted in the report that they take action against hawkers regularly, we need a long-standing resolution.
The hawkers cannot return because that is a mockery of the civic administration effectiveness, which clears the hawkers at one time and they return in a few hours or even less. The very fact that a housing society had paid a pretty sum for stationing their own bouncers is also a pointer to just how deep the rot has set in. It also does not augur well for the situation in the city, if individuals or housing societies resort to ‘private’ parties to keep the footpath encroachment-free.
This is sure to lead to huge problems and clashes that may escalate to dangerous levels. This puts into perspective the urgency for civic authorities to clear encroachments and prevent temporary action. The first step, of course, would be to prevent encroachments from cropping up in the first place.
Several spaces are now too far gone, with encroachments taking root and since prevention did not happen in time; one needs to uproot them. The hawker-resident clash has reached an epic proportion. This needs to be tackled with civic and if need be, law and order, intervention.
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