The civic body, which has undertaken a massive drive of confiscating handcarts encroaching road space, has now issued itself a deadline to get rid of them.
If the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has its way, handcarts that obstruct traffic at public places will soon be a thing of the past. The civic body, which has undertaken a massive drive of confiscating handcarts encroaching road space, has now issued itself a deadline to get rid of them.
The BMC license department has now been given a timeline by superiors. If any handcarts are spotted on city roads post-March 20, the license department officials, in charge of monitoring them, will be penalised. The dictum was passed by Deputy Municipal Commissioner Vijaysinh Kalam Patil.
Strengthening its drive against illegal food-cart vendors, four civic enforcement squads headed by Kalampatil confiscated as many as 3708 carts in the last five days. Civic teams have so far undertaken the drive in Andheri, Vile Parle, Jogeshwari, Mulund, Bhandup, Ghatkopar, Chembur, Vakola, Santacruz, Parel, Masjid Bunder and Byculla . On Friday, 856 carts were seized. The drive, however, has not gone down well with hawkers. A mob gheraoed and obstructed BMC staff during a drive at Goregaon (East) on Thursday afternoon.
“The mob wouldn’t let us confiscate handcarts. They even threatened to hit us,” said deputy municipal commissioner BR Marathe who was present. He added, “Faced with opposition, we had to take help from the police. The cops resorted to a mild lathi charge to disburse the mob.”
Marathe and colleagues later filed a complaint against a handful of hawkers for obstructing public servants on duty with the Goregaon police station. Till the time of filing the copy, the police were registering the complaint. The reason for the ire among hawkers is that the BMC has hiked the fees for the redemption of the confiscated hand carts.
Hawkers are required to pay Rs 3000 as fine and Rs 7000 as redemption fees if they want their carts back. “The exorbitant penalty is to discourage hawkers from redeeming their carts and repeating the illegal act,” said Kalampatil.
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