Footpaths are for pedestrians and not illegal chaat stalls
Encroachments on footpaths and by the roadside are so common that most of us barely notice them. We have to step around these vendors, be very inconvinienced by them and their customers and yet we choose to ignore them. We do not even hesitate while buying things from these very vendors that cause us so much trouble everyday. Why?
A particularly irritating example is a chaat stall on the canal road connecting Prabhat Road and Law College Road in Pune. The encroached stall along with its customers inconvenience vehicles as well as pedestrians and yet the customer base for this stall just keeps growing. I have complained to the traffic department about this but they gave me some lame excuses and promised to take action in the matter. A few months later nothing has happened. On Agarkar road, these chaat stall encroachments are right beside the house of a state minister. They were cleared recently for a presidential visit and reinstalled the very next day.
Does chaat taste better when the stall is on encroached public land and served in the most unhygienic of conditions? Why can’t we tell these vendors that we disapprove of their encroachment on the footpath? Smile, stay polite and you won’t risk getting beaten up.
The real reason why administration can afford to ignore these matters is that there’s no public outcry. Unfortunately its the same case on most Indian roads and most Indian cities. Unless the common man protests, nothing will change.
It’s not just the corporation’s responsibility to keep the footpath / roads free from illegal vendors and hawkers. It is also our duty to not buy from these vendors. Educate friends and family and ask them to buy only from proper shops and not from encroached and illegal streetside vendors.
Posted By - Harshad Oak
Using Right To Information Act To Get Better FootPaths for Pune - Thoughts on India, Pune, Society, Religion, Politics, Life, Technology… by Harshad Oak said,
December 19, 2006 @ 10:01 am
[...] I have been reading up on the Right to Information for quite some time and now intend to use to to get some answers on an important issue, Footpaths. I have written about this before “Pune Corporation - The Art of Converting Public Parking Spaces Into Private Property” and “Footpaths are for pedestrians and not illegal chaat stalls” [...]
sonali said,
January 14, 2007 @ 4:12 am
hello harshad, i just dont find how we can blame the vendors, we just cant …
imagine if they had some better organised place to stand , i believe that they would have surely gone there…we cant blame the poors who are trying to make their livelihood …
dont u think that the government itself should solve this problem…?
thank u.
T Krishna Prasad said,
April 29, 2008 @ 6:25 am
Hello Harshad and Sonali
I think the authorities should find a place for vendors.Question is where?
Definitly not on the middle of the road nor on the sidewalks.
But somewhere else so that they have their livelyhood as well.
But the right to walk and cycle is supreme.Please do not snatch it away.