In a brazen act of official apathy, the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) and police are failing to check the menace of illegal occupation of the roadside vendors in the Summer Capital of the State.Street vendors across City nerve centre Lal Chowk and other areas here have encroached major portions of roads and footpaths – creating trouble for pedestrians and vehicular movement. The footpaths are occupied by vendors selling items like electronic accessories, garments, cosmetic collections, fruits, vegetables, crockery, snacks and leather goods. With footpath vendors occupying space on the streets, the vehicles could be seen struggling to move and pedestrians craving for a smooth walk, especially at some of the cities crowded places like Residency road, Amira Kadal, Goni Khan, Hari Singh High Street and Batamaloo.“To travel short distances, it takes hours to reach the destination as vendors have extended their carts on roads. Which results in frequent traffic jams and the bus runs at a snail’s pace,” said a local Bashir Ahmed.
“There is hardly any space left for vehicles on the Amira Kadal Bridge as most of the bridge is occupied by vendors and fishermen, I had to travel to Batamaloo via Residency road and it took me an hour to cross the Amira Kadal Bridge. They (street vendors) should be removed from the pavements to ensure smooth movement of traffic and pedestrians safety,” said a pedestrian Shabir Ahmad Dar.In many places of the city footpaths do not technically exist, as they are either too narrow for people to walk on, or have been encroached by hawkers, forcing pedestrians onto the roads.
Ufaq Ashraf, a student Said: “Students face lots of problems on their way to colleges and schools. Every day I have to carve my way by nudging people and at some places wait in queues to pass.” She says, a walk down the road is an evidence enough to depict how the entire footpaths and roadsides have been devoured by vendors.Adding to the miseries of the people at some places one could see two or even three rows of kiosks side by side selling different goods thus leading to frequent traffic jams.Locals alleged that the illegal occupiers maintain good liaison with some police personnel, local goons and politically influential people to run their businesses on the footpaths.
Meanwhile a vegetable vendor, Mohammad Shafi said “we are aware about the problems that pedestrians face but we have no other option. We know we are doing business on public place illegally, but this is the only way for income through which we are feeding our families.”Being educated we still are in this kind of business, we are ready to leave the public places if government will rehabilitate us to the area where from we could earn for our survival,” he added.
"It is a chain that leads to problems for pedestrians, motorists and cops. As hawkers occupy footpaths, pedestrians have no option but to walk on the roads and this affects the smooth flow of traffic, leading to jams. In places where the traffic movement is smooth, an unsuspecting pedestrian, who is suddenly forced onto the road, is vulnerable to falling under some speeding wheels,” a traffic police officer, wishing not to be named, told GNS.The people sought the intervention of the concerned authorities to take action against the footpath encroachments.
Talking to GNS, Superintendent of Police South, Shridhar Patil, said, “It is the duty of Srinagar Municipal Corporation to remove the vendors from streets and let them come to us we are ready to provide any sort of assistance whenever they need in curbing this menance.”He further denied the allegation of involvement of police personnel with illegal occupiers.Despite attempts commissioner SMC could not be contacted for comments.