Our footpaths and hawkers
The Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) mayor has recently announced that DSCC will soon conduct drives to free up our roads and footpaths from illegal occupation. Although the news brought some relief to the city-dwellers, especially the pedestrians who have to undertake the Herculean task of navigating through the barely useable footpaths, thanks to the hawkers; it has also made us wary of the fact that these drives will only act as stop-gap measures, and within a short period of time, the footpaths will be illegally grabbed again. However, if the authorities evict the hawkers without rehabilitating them, then a permanent solution to free up our footpaths will not be possible. In order to make our footpaths useable again, we must rehabilitate the hawkers first. Development should be inclusive, and the benefits of betterment should trickle down to the all.
Jarina Rahman, Bashabo, Dhaka
Comments