Hello,
A rare case of diligence and conscientious duty by an upright and honest officer, in Haryana
As against that, here are some very normal reports, excuses,. excuses, excuses
Excuses, excuses, excuses.
Jagdeep
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Demolition man shoes away protests
Dhananjay Jha, Hindustan Times
Gurgaon, November 22, 2011
Gurgaon, November 22, 2011
First Published: 01:08 IST(22/11/2011)
Last Updated: 01:15 IST(22/11/2011)
Last Updated: 01:15 IST(22/11/2011)
Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda) administrator Praveen Kumar speaks with locals during a demolition drive near Bristol Hotel in Gurgaon. HT
Kumar, 52, a homeopathy practitioner and Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda) administrator, wanted to pacify an angry
Not a faceless babu in Gurgaon, Kumar is known to be on the road early in the morning every day, booking people for even misusing water.
On Sunday night, he arrived at the spot with other Huda officials to carry out a court order to demolish illegal constructions on a 500-yard stretch.
"I told the crowd that my intention was clear. This drive is being conducted under a court order, but they were not ready to listen."
As the crowd, mostly local shopkeepers, grew restive, Kumar sensed danger and took off his shoes and hit himself. He also touched the feet of the people around. And all this while, a huge police force surrounded him.
"My aim was to remove unauthorised constructions, and not to hurt people's sentiments. I didn't do any thing wrong as it was the only way to prove my innocence."
Eyewitnesses said that before taking the shoe in hand, he refused to listen to the shop-owners' objections, nor did he take calls from the political brass.
Later, Kumar spent the night on the floor of a half-demolished building and began his work early Monday morning. Till late Sunday night, the locals tried to soften him with sweets and gifts, but he refused.
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'Stop the excuses, enforce SC order'
Linah Baliga | TNN
Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) claims it cannot start implementing its policy on street vendors until the president greensignals a required amendment in the Bombay Police Act. But for activists, this argument is an excuse to put off creating hawking and non-hawking zones that would ease the chaos on some of Mumbai's roads.
"The BMC refuses to create zones for street vendors unless the draft policy is made a law. This is but an excuse," said Nayana Kathpalia, co-convenor of NGO Citispace. "It's clear in the Supreme Court's orders of 2003 and 2007 that till such time the policy comes into force, the SC order is valid and the BMC must implement it."
In 2007, the SC, after studying a submitted report, had demarcated 230 Mumbai streets as hawking zones. The number was later increased to 1,700. "The state government told the SC in 2007 that it's in the process of framing a policy on hawkingon the lines of the national policy on hawking. The court said its scheme should be enforced until the state finalizes and implements a policy," said advocate Jamshed Mistry.
The BMC's draft policy recommends formation of a ward hawkers committee and a city hawkers committee, the latter of which has been criticized by Citispace as 'too unwieldy' to work effectively.
TIMES VIEW
People manning the BMC's ward offices will have to decide whose side they are on: the tax-paying citizen's or the law-breaking hawker's. The figures here tell the whole story; registering less than one FIR every month when the situation is abundantly evident all over the city—especially along arterial roads as well as roads leading to railway stations in the suburbs—is a breach of the citizen's trust. It is this attitude that results in incidents of hawkers bashing up citizens demanding the space that is rightfully theirs. Senior officers in the BMC must monitor the activities of ward-level junior officers to tackle the problem.
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Only 34 FIRs on illegal hawkers in 3 years
BMC Evicted 6L Vendors, But Took Strict Action Against Just A Handful
Linah Baliga | TNN
The civic body removed more than 6 lakh illegal hawkers over more than three years, but registered first information reports (FIR) against merely 34 and further fined only a section. Activists say it is this absence of strict punishment that has emboldened Mumbai's hawkers to openly flout laws and return to the same spots again and again.
Between April 2008 and August 2011, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) claims it cleared away 6.23 lakh illegal street sellers. The first year—from April 2008 to March 2009—1.79 lakh vendors were removed, the next financial year 1.72 lakh, and in the next 1.83 lakh. In the five months beginning April this year, the corporation says it forced out more than 87,000 illegal roadside sellers. And yet, only a few of them were punished.
During the period, just 34 FIRs were filed which, on an average, means less than one FIR a month. Also, the corporation collected from errant sellers a total fine (called redemption charges) of Rs 8.7 crore. This collection, said civic activist Milind Mulay, could have been at least six times higher (Rs 56.23 crore, to be precise) had the civic body levied even the minimum fine on all those 6.23 lakh hawkers removed. The minimum redemption charge was Rs 1,120 per hawker until April 2010, after which it was reduced to Rs 620.
The data on hawkers was sought by Mulay under the Right to Information Act. Submitted by S Avhad, superintendent of licences (SL), it includes the figures from all 24 municipal wards.
Civic activists argue that the figures show it is the BMC's ineffectiveness in filing FIRs against illegal hawkers and fining them that encourages these vendors to return to the same spots repeatedly.
"The authorities must fine more illegal hawkers if they want to make their action effective. This would leave it uneconomical for illegal hawkers to continue," said Mulay. "The current rules may be a deterrent but they need to be implemented strictly."
An illegal hawker in Dadar told TOI on condition of anonymity: "The BMC takes action against a group of hawkers but fines just one of them. To ply our trade, we pay Rs 30 every day to a lineman who collects it and passes it on to the BMC and the police."
Vijay Balmwar, deputy municipal commissioner, encroachment removal, claimed the information regarding FIRs was incorrect. "We have filed more FIRs. This information has come from SL and not ward-level senior inspectors (licence), who are public information officers." In repsonse, Avhad said the data he submitted had, in fact, been collected from all 24 wards.
Contesting the data, Ramesh Pawar, assistant commissioner, K-West ward, claimed he has lodged 42 complaints—which lead to FIRs—against illegal hawkers this year in his ward. He explained that the BMC files two types of FIRs against illegal vendors. One is registered under section 353 of the Bombay Police Act, when a hawker "violently" prevents civic officials from carrying out their action. The other is filed under sections (313) and 516 3(A) of MMC Act 1888 for rendering services in a public place without a license, which is a cognisable offence. "The police then decides on the course of action and produces the hawker in a magistrate's court," said Pawar.
KANDIVLI Atul Vora, a Citispace activist, says there are many hawkers on Mathuradas Road in Kandivli (West). Just recently, residents came out on the streets in Mahavir Nagar and forced the BMC to take stringent action against illegal street sellers. Subsequently, a cleanliness drive was conducted in the area. "It was not the BMC but local residents who got rid of the hawkers. It was us who complained to the ward office. The civic body is wary of taking action against illegal hawkers since they fear being attacked. Its officers complain they have no police protection," says Vora
MAHIM The main encroachers in Mahim, says Herman Dias, a member of Zameen ALM, are the basket weavers on Mahim station road, who scuttle all attempts to beautify the area by uprooting plants. The moment the BMC comes to evict them, they jump onto the adjacent railway property. That is why the civic body has now decided to brick up the gaps in the wall running parallel to the train tracks. Dias says the policy on hawkers will be useful since it allots few hawking zones in the G-North ward, where Mahim falls. Even so, the ALM is not banking on the policy. It is awaiting the formation of encroachment removal squads, which was promised by a former assistant municipal commissioner. In case, the corporation fails to form these squads, Dias says, the ALM will take their complaint to BMC chief Subodh Kumar
VILE PARLE (W) In Vile Parle (W), it is the citizens' groups that have done more than the civic body to keep away encroachers. "We look after the station road area, SV Road, Dadabhai Road and Bapubhai Vashi Road," says Veena Sanghvi, secretary of Vile Parle (West) Parivartan Sahakar Samiti ALM. "We got rid of a pav bhaji vendor on Baja Road corner and cleared the khau galli." Every night, Sanghvi claims, at least 50 people would stand guard. "On Dadabhai Road, the footpath is narrow and encroached. There are six illegal vendors currently conducting business there. We are now focusing on evicting them"
ANDHERI (W) An attack on a shopkeeper by illegal hawkers in Andheri and similar violence in Bandra and Vakola recently prompted 13 ALMs from Bandra to Andheri to come together under an umbrella group called United K (West) Federation. The group's objective is to keep away illegal roadside vendors from their areas. Its president Kamaljit Singh argues, "BMC action isn't as effective as it should be. It is apparent that there is pressure on the ward officer from some sources, hindering his work. Today, since there are three BMC vans parked opposite the station, there are no hawkers there." These hawkers, Singh says, have simply moved to the stretch between Laram Centre and McDonald's on MA Road despite the presence of BMC and police vans there. "The vans leave after 6pm, which defeats the purpose" — Linah Baliga
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