Shimla Ward Watch Lower Bazaar: Encroachments clog busy market

Navneet Rathore

Shimla, April 16

Encroachments by shopkeepers and unauthorised street vendors, besides a mesh of overhead wires, are the issues bothering residents of the Lower Bazaar ward of the Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC).

Locals complain that due to the encroachments and unauthorised street vendors, they face a lot of inconvenience on a daily basis. The residents said due to the mesh of overhead wires, fire tenders would not pass from the market in case of an emergency.

Lower Bazaar is one of the busiest market of the town with thousands of people visiting the area every day. The market mainly has garment and shoes shops, besides several hardware shops, eateries and shop selling daily needs. It hosts a special Sunday market, which attracts thousands of customers. Due to the huge influx of visitors and customers, shopkeepers tend to encroach the roadside for displaying their products, which leads to congestion in the market.

Sufan Sood, a resident of Lower Bazaar, who also runs a jewellery shop in the market, said many shopkeepers had encroached the roadside.

“These shopkeepers display their wares outside shops, leading to congestion in the area and causing inconvenience to people as well as other shopkeepers. There are also a lot of unauthorised street vendors who can create bottlenecks in an emergency situation,” Sood said.

Vinod Jaswal, a resident of the ward, said hanging wires had become a big problem for the residents. He said monkeys jump on roofs of houses from these wires and damage their property. He said sparking was reported from these wires many times.

The corporation had made plans for undergrounding wires, but nothing had been done so far, he lamented.

Talking to The Tribune, Lower Bazaar Councillor Umang Banga said the issue of the overhead wires had been taken by the Chief Minister and a budget for Rs 50 crore had been earmarked for this. The work on underground wiring would start soon, she said.

The councillor said the work would be done in two phases — in phase one, the undergrounding of wires from Chotta Shimla to Oakover would be taken up. In the second phase, the work on stretch from Oakover to CTO via Lower Bazaar would be done after assessing the success rate.

On the issue of encroachments by shopkeepers and unauthorised street vendors, Banga said the issue had been raised many times at the monthly meeting of the SMC.

“A team is sent to remove unauthorised street vendors from the market every Sunday. The team gives notices to the offenders and also seize their goods. The offenders will also be fined in future if they do not comply with the directions,” she said.