2 min readSep 14, 2012 02:48 AM IST
First published on: Sep 14, 2012 at 02:48 AM IST
With the hawker menace in the city still giving the civic administration sleepless nights,the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has decided to undertake a biometric survey of illegal hawkers. The purpose is to have details,including fingerprints of hawkers,in its records so that they can be identified easily and strict action be taken against those operating illegally.
“The civic administration needs to take action against hawkers on a regular basis. Despite being evicted,they come back to the same footpaths and roads. It is also difficult to identify the unauthorised hawkers operating on the city streets,” said Rajendra Jagtap,additional municipal commissioner,PMC.
The hawkers produce the licence issued by the PMC and get away without facing action,he said,admitting that the civic staff struggles to differentiate between legal and illegal hawkers. The PMC will verify authorised hawkers and collect data such as fingerprints and location.
A GIS mapping of hawkers will be done,wherein it will be possible to find the details of any hawker in a click,he said. “The civic staff can then verify authorised hawkers with the help of their fingerprints and decide on action against illegal ones.” In some cases,it was found that many hawkers with valid PMC licences have given up their business and rented out their licence it to someone else,Jagtap said. This is the reason that the number of hawkers never goes down,he added.
Ramesh Shelar,in charge of the anti-encroachment department,said,“The PMC has stopped issuing licences to hawkers for the last few years. There are only 7,224 authorised ones operating in the city. However,the number of hawkers in the city is over 14,000.”
He said some hawkers have tampered with the licence,so a biometric survey will also help verify such cases.
Corporators have been taking on the civic administration for failing to check illegal hawkers,saying that it has also led to increase in crime.
The municipal corporation’s efforts to rehabilitate hawkers by shifting them to other locations have not been yielding results as the hawkers refuse to move fearing loss in business,he said.
Share
