Roadside vegetable and fish vendors evicted in Charali Bazaar

From our

Correspondent

DIGBOI, Dec 25: In order to curb the mece of unplanned and unstructured parking at Charali Bazar in the oil town of Digboi, the representatives of Digboi Town Committee and Digboi Police, headed by Inspector Mahesh Borah, evicted all the vegetable and fish vendors along the busy NH-38 at Charali Bazaar area during an eviction drive on Sunday afternoon.

The team of representatives of Digboi Town Committee headed by the chairman, vice-chairman and police personnel had earlier asked the vendors to shift inside the Charli market and vacate the place along the highway which had been creating traffic congestion resulting from haphazard parking. According to official sources, following several requests to the vendors which bore no significant result, the eviction was carried out on Sunday wherein the affected vendors were also provided with adequate space to carry on their regular business. The affected vendors mostly comprised the rural vegetables sellers from various places of Digboi, including Balijan, Borjan, Kenduguri, Lakhipather, Bhimpather and Panbari.

Meanwhile, Inspector Mahesh Borah, while talking to The Sentinel, said that due to shortage of space along the highway at Charali bazaar, the mece of illogical parking had been causing enough trouble for pedestrians, particularly in the evening. Besides traffic congestion during the evening, people were also facing a lot of inconvenience.

However, the affected vendors expressed strong resentment over the drive, terming it as ‘biased’. According to the evicted vendors, the entire footpath occupied by fruit stalls had been overlooked by the authority concerned, which in fact added to the woes of the pedestrians. “Several stalls have been set up on the slabs on the main drain connecting from Charali Police point area to Mission Para Link road. These stalls were not evicted for reasons best known to the political leaders and town committee members,” alleged an evicted vegetable seller of Borjan area.

However, following the eviction, the parking of two wheelers was streamlined in the area on one side while the four wheelers were parked as per the directions of the VDP volunteers on the other end who had been deputed for the purpose by Digboi Police Station.