Sagar Biswas :About three-fourth of the city’s total footpaths is illegally occupied by street hawkers creating a severe civic problem, whereas the City Corporations, both Dhaka North and Dhaka South, failed to deal with the issue till the date for reasons best known to them. Actually, the city footpaths are now used as the alternative markets for all sorts of goods, from fabrics to electronics and computer software to automobile hardware, what not! Everything is available here.And centering the lucrative business, some powerful syndicates are now running weekly 50 crore taka extortion businesses in a planed way allegedly getting patronise from a section of ruling party leaders and local police stations. The ‘selected men’ of syndicates collect weekly toll from footpath shops in the name of ‘protection’.”We will not tolerate any kind of wrongdoings, whoever he is, we will ‘size’ him by any means……You know, if I want I can free the city footpaths from illegal grabbers just within a few days. But I don’t want to do so in a hurried way,” said Dhaka North City Corporation [DNCC] Mayor Annisul Huq expressing severe dissatisfaction. Pointing finger towards corrupt high-ups, the Mayor said, “Some influential persons are directly involved in grabbing city footpaths. But at the same time, the footpath is the only way of earning livelihood to hundreds of poor men. For that reason, we have decided to take ‘go slow’ policy to evict the footpaths.” “I want to beautify the capital city Dhaka and for that reason I’ve started work in a pre-planned way. About 56 foot over bridges in the DNCC will be decorated with flowers. Already 5.6 km roadside wall has been ornamented with colouful graphic designs. Hope, the works will be completed by June next year,” Annis also said explaining his future plan. When DNCC Mayor expressed optimism to free the footpaths from illegal grabbers, at that time the illegal grabbers are expanding their business by occupying more and more footpaths in the city.According to statistics provided by DNCC and DSCC, of the 163 km footpath across the city, around 108.60 km has been grabbed by the illegal occupants. Not only that, out of the 2289.69 km roads [for vehicles], about 527 has been forcibly occupied by street vendors posing serious threat to the smooth movement of vehicular traffic, creating gridlock almost every day.Meanwhile, there are widespread allegations that a section of unscrupulous officials of the two city corporations provide support to the illicit trade in exchange of lucrative monthly payment. At the same time, the police also get a fat share from the footpath business ‘for not paying attention’ to the unlawful activities. This reporter while visiting different parts of the city on Thursday and Wednesday witnessed that most portions of footpaths, adjacent to important busy roads, have gone under the grip of illegal street hawkers. Both sides of footpaths from in front of Aziz Super Market at Shahbagh to Science Laboratory via Elephant Road have become almost unusable due to street vendors. The condition of nearby another footpath from Science Laboratory crossing to Nilkhet and towards south Dhaka College is also the same. Even the footpath from Gawsia [inner side] to Elephant Road is grabbed by makeshift shop owners. The scenario is not different at posh residential area Banani and Gulshan while the condition of footpath from Malibagh to Rampura road is also the same. All the footpaths at Karwan Bazar area and the footpaths from Farm Gate to Green Road along with Indira Road are occupied by the grabbers. The illegal occupants are also seen in the footpaths of Mirpur -1 to Mirpur-14 while the legal shoppers are running their trade occupying large portion of footpaths from Mirpur -1 to Mirpur-10 Crossing to Pallabi. The shop owners also have occupied both sides of Kalshi footpaths for displaying their goods.On the other hand, in Motijheel, the street vendors have occupied not only the footpaths, but also the busy roads from in front of Bangladesh Bank to Water Development Board Office, Sonali Bank to Fakirapool, Baitul Mokarram to Paltan Crossing to BMA Bhaban. Though unbelievable, the hawkers have also captured entire road and footpath at Bangabandhu Avenue in front of Awami League headquarters.About footpaths at Dhaka South City Corporation [DSCC], especially about Bangabandhu Avenue, the comment of Mayor Syeed Khokan, however, could not be available as he is now outside the country.Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Muntashirul Islam said, “It’s not only duty of police to free the footpaths from illegal occupants. The City Corporations are mainly responsible for this. We will help them, if they want our cooperation.”Meanwhile, the town planners have laid emphasis on eviction of footpaths for smooth movement of traffic and pedestrians. “Apart from political will, it also needs coordinated move of all concerned departments to clean the footpaths from illegal grabbers,” said Iqbal Habib, Joint Secretary of Bangladesh Paribesh Andolan. “The illegal grabbing of footpaths is also a big reason for traffic jam. But at first it needs rehabilitation of hawkers before evicting them from footpaths,” he said.
