If you found some railway foot overbridges (FOBs) relatively less encroached by hawkers, it is not because authorities have cracked the whip or hawkers have become law-abiding all of a sudden. It is just that several hawkers regularly plying their wares illegally on railway FOBs have joined in the drama being played out on city streets in the name of hawker verification.
With the realisation that the hawker verification drive, through which city hawkers hope to get a permanent licence, will be conducted only in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation-controlled areas and not railway premises, hawkers have made a beeline for the road around stations they have generally been working out of.
"Over the past week, there has been a sudden drop in hawkers encroaching railway FOBs. However, unfortunately, they return in the evening when BMC working hours are over and the verification drive on the streets is done for the day. This is a joke and clearly shows how this city is soon going to be subject to some serious logistical problems, thanks to an increase in hawking activity," said a commuter, who has in the past complained against hawkers.
Railway officials, while unwilling to come on record, agreed that this is possibly the first time a drop in hawking activity has been seen in railway station areas despite no particular drive being carried out by the Railway Protection Force teams of either Western or Central Railways.
Less survey, more sham
BMC's drive to survey hawkers, as part of the Supreme Court order in 2013 to implement the national hawking policy of 2009, has now degenerated into what political parties cutting across affiliations have condemned as farcical. In several parts of the city, people have been plonking themselves on footpaths, clear of hawkers till the other day, with a handful of wares for vending trying to pass themselves off as longtime hawkers. Apart from this, the general buoyancy in the hawking trade stems from the fact that according to the Street Vendors' (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, the upper limit for the number of hawkers in any city should be around 2.5% of the city's population. In Mumbai, by some estimates that could be as high as 3 lakh hawkers.
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