Speak up Delhi: Govt apathy acts as catalyst for hawker, parking menace

Encroachments and haphazard parking of vehicles around the entry and exit points at south Delhi’s  Greater Kailash M-Block market has become a shoddy reality of the post locality.  The tall promises made by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and BJP-led civic bodies, failed to tackle the issues over the years.

The entire area is marred by unregulated parking services that affects the business of the traders and keep their associations on their toes. “These issues continue to remain more or less the same even as several governments have changed over time. This is south Delhi’s oldest posh market after independence but basic services like proper parking lots and broken approach roads have not been heeded to,” said Sukhvinder Bajaj, who deals in packaging material in the market.

According to market association, it has around 250 odd shops and 73 buildings in total, with a parking space of 300 vehicles. This is besides two surface parking lots —one each with the capacity of accommodating 400 vehicles — at the entry and exit points of the market. “ A parking mafia is parallelly running to the civic boody-authorised parking here,”said Ankita Triwedi, a customer.

The standard parking rate for an hour is Rs 20, however, when asked customers said during rush hours and on weekends they pay Rs 40 or more. “From 5-8pm on weekends, I have been charged around Rs 100 for a little less than an hour,” she said.

Similar situation prevails in neighbouring Lajpat Market, where major portion of the locality has been encroached by the hawkers and street vendors. “The civic authority badly fails in controlling such encroachments. Despite clear directions by the lieutenant governor and later the Supreme Court for removing the squatters from this place, no one took the matter seriously,” said Sanjay Baruah, a trader in the market.

Recently on October 25, the National Green Tribunal had also asked the Delhi police to remove encroachments in Lajpat Nagar market, in a bid to smoothen the traffic movement. “All these things are still on paper and nothing has been done so far. The encroachment of street sides by the vendors continue to cause traffic mess in the locality,” said another trader Anil Aneja.

UNREGULATED PARKING

• The entire area is marred by unregulated parking services that affects the business of the traders. Some traders say that they themselves have to move out of the shop to stop people from parking anywhere. 

Footpath and bylanes been encroached has been happening for years now. But what I feel strange is hawkers encroaching bus stands. Bus stands at AIIMs and Safdarjung in the South are taken over by food sellers, which makes commuting difficult. People crowd at the bus stops to eat adding to already crowded localities.
—Ishita Gupta 

One cannot confine encroachment to just hawkers, even auto rickshaw drivers have equal share in the encroachment of lanes near metro stations and educational institutions. Every time a student comes out of the college gate only thing he cans see is the line of autorickshaw in front of college gate.
—Yash Chhabra

South Delhi especially Lajpat Nagar witness a heavy footfall of shoppers but this footfall has resulted into parking issues as shoppers then park their vehicles anywhere they want, encroaching our green belts and making it difficult for the residents to walk on the streets of Lajpat Nagar.
—Jatin Arora

During my visits to famous market places like, Chandni Chowk, Sarojini and Lajpat, one thing that seemed common in all was the encroached market lanes. Usually by the hawkers but in Old Delhi, vehicles have equal and even major share in encroaching the lanes. I hope some day authorities will look towards the issues more seriously.
—Sivaranjini R

Encroachment has taken away the beauty of the city that we live in. Even in my locality, hawkers are dotted on the streets making it difficult to walk on the streets during evening hours. Moreover, these hawkers are not even warned by the authorities to vacant the place, let aside the action on them. 
—Harshit Chawla 

Vegetable sellers, usually stand on the streets, affecting the movement of the vehicles passing by and then their are vehicles parked irresponsibly on the lanes. But the real issue is the reluctant behaviour of the authorities towards irregularities.
—Priyanshu Agarwal

EXPERT SPEAK

We try our best to ensure smooth and hassle free-parking facility in the markets across the city. The corporation has introduced multi-level parking facilities in different markets and localities to avoid encroachment on the streets. The North body has also introduced a parking app named ‘MCD parking’ using which the locals can directly send their complaints related to parking issues. To remove illegal encroachments by hawkers and street vendors, the corporation has also launched massive drives in different localities with heavy penalty being imposed on the violators.”
—Yogendra Singh Mann, Spokesperson, North Civic Body