Shopkeepers in front of KEM Hospital take hawkers to court

Their troubles started in a pronounced way around three years ago when a hawker started selling breakfast items from a makeshift table and chair right in front of Rajeev Sapkal’s shop, Manish Medical Store. “The hawker completely blocked the entrance to my store

MUMBAI: Shopkeepers in front of KEM Hospital, after complaining endlessly about the hawkers in front of their shops, will now have to wait another three weeks for any possible relief. Their review petition seeking action against the illegal hawkers in front of their shops was filed in August 2023 and mentioned on January 3 but not heard, delaying any solution to the problem eating into their profits for years.

Illegal hawkers around the KEM Hospital, local residents filed the complaint against hawkers in the BMC office, Mumbai, India. Jan 04,2023. (Photo by Raju Shinde)

Their troubles started in a pronounced way around three years ago when a hawker started selling breakfast items from a makeshift table and chair right in front of Rajeev Sapkal’s shop, Manish Medical Store. “The hawker completely blocked the entrance to my store,” said Sapkal. “My shop is directly in front of Gate No 2 of KEM Hospital, and even though my customers are directly walking in front, their way to my shop was blocked. There’s a medical store to my side too, so if they came from the side, they would go there.” Initial requests and complaints only bore fruit after months—but in no time, another hawker was back at the spot.

“I was asked why I was targeting only particular hawkers, to which I replied that I only had a problem with the ones in front of my shop,” said Sapkal. “But as they kept coming back, and I found out that this road was a ‘No Hawking Zone’, I decided to take the matter to the high court.”

Sapkal is supported by Jaswant Singh, who owns a restaurant called Hotel Milan a few shops away from his. “I fear I won’t be able to keep my business running in another three months,” he said. “While I have to pay commercial rates for electricity and water, pay GST and my staff, the hawkers get away with spending little so they’re able to charge less for their food. So people prefer them, despite having the option of subsidised food within the hospital.”

The petition centres around the issue of hawkers obstructing the entrances of shops, spreading uncleanliness and obstructing the movement of ambulances and BEST buses. Singh mentioned that the hawkers had mushroomed after Covid-19, even as letters against them taking up the road were submitted to the BMC as long back as 1999. Sapkal was one of the signatories to these.

In 2022, 45 supporters—including residents and shopkeepers—signed a letter in support of Sapkal, saying, “We daily witness ambulances getting stuck in traffic jams, and patients and their relatives walking on the roads, as hawkers and hawking stalls have captured the pavements.”

An earlier petition, filed on July 20, was scrapped due to insufficient evidence. “It is necessary for the petitioner to give details of the hawkers, the places from which they are carrying out the business of street-vending and the timings during which they are carrying on the business,” said the court.

It noted that the BMC’s reply to the petition mentioned that there were nine licensed stalls on the footpath of Dr E Borges Road in front of KEM Hospital, including in front of Manish Medical Store, but as hawking zones had yet to be decided, the BMC was in search of a “long-term solution”.

Sakpal, however, claimed that plenty of evidence regarding illegal and unlicensed hawkers was submitted in rejoinder affidavits, and hence filed a review petition in the high court in August 2023. The BMC and police themselves have acknowledged the issue, said Singh, furnishing an RTI response which detailed that 60 illegal hawkers on the road had been fined between January 2020 and February 2021.