Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI: It is imperative on the part of GMC (Guwahati Municipal Corporation) to remove unauthorized vendors from footpaths and streets of the city so as to compel them to occupy spaces allotted to them in several market infrastructure projects constructed for them. If the civic body takes a lenient approach in removing the illegal vendors from footpaths and streets, the vendors will never move to their allotted market spaces.
The GMC must ensure that market infrastructures for vendors are not allocated to others, as doing so would perpetuate footpath and street congestion.
What a reality survey by The Sentinel has found is abysmally dismal. The market infrastructures have been lying unused because the vendors to whom the civic body allotted the market spaces refuse to do their business from the GMC’s infrastructures on flimsy grounds. Vendors say, ‘They will not get the right flow of customers there,’ but they don’t express a willingness to accept regulation, even though it would require spending profits on utility services like rental of market spaces, power bills, etc.
This situation represents multiple failures for the civic body. The civic body has spent money from the state coffers on market infrastructure that has remained unused, contributing nothing to the state exchequer. The very purpose of these projects—easing congestion on footpaths and streets so as to give respite to pedestrians and other road users—has remained the same.
The authorities in the civic body often say, ‘We can’t use force on illegal vendors, as that will be an infringement on their rights.’ The civic body cannot and should not use force on the illegal vendors to send them to their allotted market spaces. What the top officials of the civic body can do is drive away illegal vendors from footpaths, streets, and roads, if necessary, by using force once. The civic body can take the strictest measures, like a heavy penalty, if and when an evicted vendor comes to his target spot on a footpath, street, or road for the second time. If they fail to take such stringent action, the top guns of the civic body will continue to violate the pedestrians’ right to free use of footpaths, vehicle owners’ right to safe use of roads, and licensed shopkeepers’ right to do business without any unfair competition.
In addition to violating these rights, the civic body will continue to harm the state exchequer and fail to implement its own policies for trivial reasons. Such behaviour reflects the incompetence of the civic body, which operates under a government that praises capable individuals. Why don’t they make the chairs they sit on available for some competent ones to provide the public a respite? Leniency should have no room in any smooth administration.
The newly inaugurated daily market complex in the Beltola area stands largely unused. In Ulubari, vendors are yet to occupy the market building nearly a year after its inauguration. In Ganeshguri, a partially completed market building has turned into another stalled civic promise. While the civic body cites pending dues, legal hurdles, illegal encroachment, and manpower shortages, the continued delay has raised serious concerns over whether these projects were launched without adequate groundwork.
The empty market buildings now reflect not just administrative delays but also a serious mismatch between infrastructure creation and actual implementation.
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