Hawkers reclaim Gulistan
Dhaka South City Corporation is facing a tough challenge in keeping hawkers away from the red zone areas that have been designated as hawker-free.
Despite repeated efforts by the mobile court to clear these critical zones, the "red" marked roads, initially intended for uninterrupted movement, keep becoming havens for hawkers again and again.
On September 7, 2022, the DSCC announced that it would introduce a new system where city roads would be divided into three categories -- red, yellow, and green. Red zones would be completely off-limits to hawkers.
Consequently, it launched a drive on September 13, 2022, to evict hawkers from roads and footpaths in the capital's Gulistan, a red zone.
The total area of the red zone was -- Zero Point (Nur Hossain Chataar) to Ahad Police Box through Bangabandhu Avenue.
Earlier, in 2017, DSCC prepared a list of around 6,000 hawkers in different areas and allocated Tk 3 crore for shifting them.
However, the plan failed as evicted hawkers returned to footpaths in areas like Gulistan and Motijheel.
In a recent visit to the GPO intersection in Gulistan, this correspondent saw that the evicted hawkers have relocated to the footpaths.
Despite eviction campaigns, hawkers are quick to resurface shortly after being removed and reclaim the areas, according to locals.
The area around Zero Point and Baitul Mukarram in Gulistan, initially marked as "red", now teems with hawkers, particularly during winter, as it transforms into a bustling cloth market during the season, they added.
Kalam, a cloth seller on the footpath, said, "We don't have huge capital for business. So we sit on the footpaths. If the government makes a permanent building for us, we won't need to sit here."
Tabarul, another cloth seller, echoed Kalam.
"DSCC removed us from here in 2022, and we sat again later. We have to support our families with this. As far as I remember, DSCC stopped running mobile courts following the first month of their operation that year," said Tabarul.
Contacted, Md Mizanur Rahman, chief executive officer of DSCC, said, "We are planning a special heritage project in Dhaka. When we start the project, we will again evict the hawkers."
Comments