Anarchy caused by city’s hawkers can’t continue

Bhaji Market Gully, which has been taken over by hawkers, in Borivli West, on Thursday. Pic/Prasun Choudhari

The courts have proclaimed that every area in Mumbai is grappling with the illegal hawker menace, with practically no corner of the city left open.

Mumbaikars have witnessed decades of skipping warily over hawkers' goods on pavements. Crowded into spaces and forced to wend their way on narrow lanes because the hawker has taken away walking space. Pedestrians putting their lives at risk as vehicles pass literally a hair's breadth away and vehicles are within touching distance. They are forced to walk on the roads as illegal stalls and hawkers have mushroomed.

For years now, we have heard talk about hawking zones. Numbering hawker outlets and allowing the legal ones. Giving a set number of licences. Putting the legal hawkers in a hawking zone. Demarcating zones and regulating the entire hawker network.

These solutions have been touted for decades now but we have not seen any progress. This problem continues to fester assuming what now looks like gargantuan proportions. There is a feeling of no way out, as Mumbaikars see a boomerang effect, a temporary cleaning up of space and the illegal hawkers back in a day if not a few hours. The very fact that the court has intervened in this, shows just how epic this has become. There is a feeling we have reached a dead end.

It is today, not tomorrow that the knotty problem has to be resolved. Every ward representative and municipal leader will have to go to the drawing board to frame a comprehensive, workable plan for this one. Is this such an extensive problem that it has gone out of hand completely?

We need a rollback, not just words and letters flying around. One that is just, puts the pedestrian first, is comprehensive, consistent and long-lasting. Let us see it at least start taking shape now.