E-Paper
48 street vendors arrested in Chandigarh, let off on bail; anti-encroachment drive on
Sources said though those arrested were registered with the administration, they had displayed their wares at unauthorised sites
With the Punjab and Haryana high court last week ordering the removal of unauthorised street vendors within a month, Chandigarh Police have cracked the whip.
On the first day of their drive on Monday, police arrested 48 people for encroaching market corridors. The drive continued on Tuesday evening, though the details were not shared till the time of filing of this report.
Sources said though those arrested were registered with the administration, they had displayed their wares at unauthorised sites.
Cases were registered under Section 283 (danger or obstruction in public way) of the Indian Penal Code. The vendors, who were later released on bail, face a fine up to ₹200 under the law.
Meanwhile, the Sector 22 police post officials have also booked around 25 auto-rickshaw drivers this month for aiding unauthorised street vendors. They too were booked under the same section.
Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Nilambari Jagadale said: “The drive is being undertaken by the department suo motu. It will continue till all unauthorised vendors are cleared from markets and other public places across the city.”
The high court on July 26 had made the deputy commissioner and SSP personally responsible for removing squatters from the Sector 22 market. Later, on September 10, the same bench asked the administration and municipal corporation (MC) to remove all illegal vendors from the city’s streets and markets within one month. According to official estimates, the total number of vendors operating in the city are around 22,000. Of these, 9,356 vendors have registered with the administration, while all other are considered illegal.
MC CHALLANS 72 VENDORS
The MC, too, continued with its drive against unregistered vendors on Tuesday. As many as 72 of them were challaned ₹10,000 each. Their articles were also seized.
Since Saturday, action has been taken against 238 illegal vendors.
MC commissioner KK Yadav said MC teams are verifying identity cards of the vendors to able to trace them if they fail to turn up to pay the fine. As reported earlier, none of the 1,800 unregistered vendors challaned this year turned up to pay the fine, turning the drives into a futile exercise. As the MC did not have their valid addresses, it made it impossible to recover the fine.
Twelve teams have been formed after the HC orders. “The enforcement teams are mainly focusing on finding and removing unregistered vendors and encroachers while ensuring that all registered ones comply with the street vending bylaws,” he said.
