Vendors continue to occupy roads, cause traffic snarls

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, May 25

Caring two hoots for the government norms authorising the setting up of vendors’ markets and allowing vending of vegetables, fruits, edibles and other products on streets, street vendors continue to occupy roads leading to traffic chaos.

The encroachment of space by vendors is so serious in some markets of the city that parking woes have also started troubling customers as well as shopkeepers.

Meanwhile, vendors accuse the Municipal Corporation of delaying the project of setting up vending zones in different areas of the city. The vendors claimed that they were unemployed and had no option but to set up vends and stalls wherever they found the place.

Talking about the issues, Mayor Balwant Rai Nath said the street vending project was pending due to identification of spots where the vendors are to be shifted to. “The MCB is looking for places which may not face traffic problems in case the vendors are shifted to the place. The process is still on,” he said.

The mayor, however, admitted the fact that the street vendors, popularly called ‘rehri’-‘farhi’, used to earlier pay some minimal charges for using public space for business. “The licence charges were minimal and the lincence had to be renewed every year. For long, the government had not drafted any rules or issued any new rate list for these vendors and hence, the number of such vendors is increasing,” he said.

He explained that the permission to ‘rehri’ and ‘farhi’ operators to sell merchandise on roads to earn their livelihood was given on the basis that they remained mobile, yet a large number of them had become stationary.

The extent of his mushrooming mode of business may be gauged from the fact that these vends, rehri, hand-pulled cart and stall operators have earmarked space for themselves. Apart from creating traffic bottlenecks, this is creating the problem of space constraints in the already narrow streets in the market areas.

As the authorities choose to look the other way, even mobile van culture is gaining pace in the city. Instead of living up to their names and being mobile, these vans, offering edibles, may be seen stationed at various busy public areas.