Shopkeepers grabbing pavement

PUNE, JULY 18: The encroachers are back on M G Road. But this time, they are the shopkeepers who seem to be taking advantage of the space...

PUNE, JULY 18: The encroachers are back on M G Road. But this time, they are the shopkeepers who seem to be taking advantage of the space available to them on the narrow pavements.

Take a walk down M G Road and chances are you may spot a shopkeeper displaying his wares outside the shop area in a manner guaranteed to attract the attention of the passers-by. Or a man selling sunglasses making the best possible use of the doors of a closed shop to display his wares. The smaller vendors selling plastic goods or even channas are also back on the roads, but the slightest sign of the Pune Cantonment authorities turning up and he is ready to make a swift get-away. Is M G Road heading back to the days when the street was virtually choked with hawkers? 8220;No,8221; maintains cantonment executive officer J Sharma.

The Pune Cantonment Board PCB is keeping a watchful eye on M G Road to ensure that the hawkers are not back. The board at the start of this month has appointed a special squad to ensure that hawkers do not return. Hawkers had virtually held reins of M G Road for more than a decade. The former board president Brig Mathew Mammen pursued the issue and succeeded in shifting over 400-odd hawkers from M G Road to a new market off Gen Thimayya Road called Fashion Street. In a swift move, the board reduced the size of the pavements to prevent the vendors from coming back and erected railings for the benefit of the pedestrians.

Meanwhile, handcarts continued to make their presence felt on M G Road during the busy evening hours following which the cantonment board moved into action and confiscated the handcarts. CEO Sharma mentioned that the board has appointed a special squad o ensure that the streets remain free from hawkers. 8220;Take a look near the Indira Gandhi Chowk. This place was in a pretty bad state. But the area has now been cleared of all encroachers,8221; he said. But he did not agree that encroachers were back on the street. In some cases, the shopkeepers themselves display the goods outside and sometimes these vendors can be seen for just an hour or so. But M G Road is free from encroachers, he maintained.