Shah Alam Nur :
Around 108 kilometers footpaths out of 163 km in Dhaka city are being occupied by street hawkers, source said.
General Secretary of Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA), Dr MA Matin said, the occupation of footpaths by the hawkers is causing pedestrians and commuters suffer.
He said, if parks and open spaces continue to disappear at the present rate, the city residents will soon face serious environmental hazards.
More than 65 per cent of the capital’s footpaths remain illegally occupied, because the authorities of the two city corporations and the Dhaka Metropolitan Police pay little attention to free the pathways from the hazards.
In Dhaka city, 18 per cent of existing footpaths are suitable for pavement while the rest is unusable due to car parking, grabbing by hawkers, waste dumping and stockpiling of construction materials.
Bangladesh Hawkers Federation President MA Kashem said, hawkers have to pay Tk 70cr monthly as tolls to different agencies. He said, some 2.5 lakh hawkers in the capital have to pay daily tolls to politically backed extortionists to run their business on the streets. He said “Each of the hawkers of area like Farmgate has been paying a monthly tolls of Tk 60 per day.”
Abul Kashem said, street vendors pay around Tk 37.5 crore as toll per month to people of different professions involved with the rackets. Besides, there are about 350 footpath stalls in the Motijheel area, cumulatively paying around Tk 20 lakh every month.
The Section 15 of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Ordinance says it is the responsibility of the police to solve any problem that can leave the people in an unpleasant and harmful situation. The footpaths must be fit for walking. So, if the footpaths are occupied by makeshift shops, the responsibility goes to the police to solve the problems.
Mohammad Khalilur Rahman, Assistant Engineer of Dhaka South City Corporation said “It will be possible to keep the footpaths free if the police administration approaches with a positive attitude. The city corporation does not have that much power to keep the footpaths free.”
He also said, “We conduct eviction drives with the help of magistrates. As soon as the magistrates leave the spots, the hawkers are back again there.”
