We had a meeting today as planned with police, Hidco, NKDA, Residents and DLF/Unitech. The idea was to join hands to create a clean and green town. DC(Traffic), Addl SP(South 24 Paraganas), CEO DLF, Unitech and associations were there. There was a powerpoint presentation by Gopal Ghosh, CEO NKDA. We decided to (i) form block committees with representatives from police, NKDA, Hidco & residents (ii) enforce parking norms (iii) spread awareness in IT enclaves and elsewhere (iv) think of mobile vans (v) bring in traffic discipline (vi) ensure fire safety, trade licence norms etc.
Major decisions would be taken in the next NKDA board meet in early July.
Here is a picture of the meeting today afternoon:
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| At 1, MAR (NKDA Conference Hall) today afternoon |
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Telegraph Metro had carried a story on this. Here is the clipping:
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Times of India carried a story today on the sale of plots in Hidco:
One of the basic problems in this country is lack of law enforcement be it encroachment or spitting in the street or drunken driving or unclean roads. Open-air foodcourt for the hwakers is a fantastic idea. But we also need to ensure that no new hawkers come up . Already new hawkers have come up near DLF 2. Even in DLF-1, there have been evictions multiple times but of no use. Also there is a chance that the hawkers will not be willing to relocate as they would tell its a loss of business.
ReplyDeleteSir, do you want to share any news about the interest of bidders in the tourism hub at Digha ?
ReplyDeleteSo this is the report that Telegraph carried out today.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.telegraphindia.com/1120626/jsp/calcutta/story_15656568.jsp#.T-k7SpHUkSc
The meeting was about GREEN & CLEAN: JOINT INITIATIVE....And I thought it went off pretty well.
ReplyDeleteIf the Mission & Goal are correct, other objectives fall in place, I'd tend to think
@Abhishek
ReplyDeleteWe as a normal citizen of Kolkata can only hope that one fine morning politicians will understand the need of the city rather over their personal need. Till then, these issues are here to stay defying everything. Promises will never be kept, rather they can't be kept as they are not meant to be kept. Hawkers will keep littering everywhere, infront of our house and we can only stare and smell the filth. That's one of the compromises we need to do in order to stay in our home city.
Also, we are only ourselves to blame in encouraging hawkers to do their business. The other way to get rid of them eventually is to dry up their source of income. For that awareness must be spread everywhere to discourage people to buy anything from hawkers. But not sure how majority of the mass will react to that, even if they at all do. We Kolkatans are reputed as being cost-sensitive. If the hawkers provide the same thing at a rupee less than the mall, we will prefer to go to them. God can only save us.
Totally agree with you Debdeep. The blame can be put on both politicians as well as the mass.
DeleteBut I want to highlight a different point. Why do we allow the hawkers to encroach at the beginning, let them acquire a critical mass and then think of evicting them. This is purely a lapse of the administration. I will give one specific example. When you go towards airport from Salt Lake on MAR, near the rotary, where you take a left turn, opposite to the HIDCO Bhawan, I found some 2-3 "Bhater Hotel"s a few months back. I am pretty sure the administration will not even think of evicting them. When 20 such hotels come up, they form a union, come under the patronage of a political party, then only administration will think of evicting them and give the execuse that political parties are patronizing them.
I heard similar encroachments are getting formed near DLF-2. But I think there are 30-50 odd shops , HIDCO will not carry out eviction drives.
DeleteNeither I heard any initiative by HIDCO to upskill these hawkers for alternate professions like carpenters, electricians, plumbers, masons etc. With so many apartments and office complexes, there is no doubt that these professions will be in great demand.
True u are. The matter should be nipped in the bud. But administration remains blind until they gain power to protest.
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