Bhopal: Hawkers’ corner, the much ambitious scheme of the BMC to provide space to local vendors and to check encroachments, is yet to come up in all the wards of the city. Out of 70 wards, these hawkers’ corners have only been set up in six wards till date, while a number of proposals are still gathering dust in files.
The civic body had come up with hawkers’ corner proposal with an aim to clear the encroachment by vendors and bring them together under one roof, but the authorities have failed to achieve the purpose. The proposal, a part of previous budget of the BMC, has not been executed in many wards as land is still to be identified, while in others local bodies and people have raised objections against these hawkers’ corner.
In some of the wards, corporators had identified land in their respective wards for the hawker zone but till date no development has taken place there. There are certain wards where people have raised objections over coming up of these hawker zone.
A special hawkers’ corner for women at ward number 46 is yet to be inaugurated despite land being allocated by the local corporator. Its corporator Guddu Chouhan is not willing to accommodate vendors of other areas in the hawker zone at his ward. The mayor in council (MIC) has rejected his demand and so the hawker zone in this ward is yet to be operational.
MIC Shankar Makoriya said that hawkers’ corner could not be set up in all the wards due to objection raised by local bodies and other organisations who have staked their claim on the marked land. We had sought NOC from the concerned authorities for setting up of hawkers’ corner at the identified land but at many places it was hard to procure, said Makoriya. Now that at most of places we have got land the process is likely to speed up, assured Makoriya.
We have around six hawkers’ corners in the city buy now and we are expecting others to be set up soon, he said. Mayor Alok Sharma, stating that he himself was monitoring the project, accepted that certain issues led to a delay in their implementation. He, however, said that the BMC is all set to hold bhoomi poojan for these hawkers’ corners in the city soon.
