Mysuru: City’s first dedicated hawker zone is all set to be inaugurated at Ashoka Circle, popular as Ballal Circle. The Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) has almost completed the construction of platforms with basic amenities for vendors (mostly food vendors) to set up stalls at the place.

The exclusive hawker zone is complete with drinking water, parking and proper waste disposal facilities. The delay in identifying and establishing a hawkers’ zone is cited as the reason for frequent clashes between roadside vendors and civic authorities.

Most of the time, these vendors are forcibly evicted with the help of Police. While the MCC authorities feel that they are following Municipal Administration Laws for eviction, vendors complain of high-handedness and harassment.

In the absence of clear-cut guidelines, hawkers regularly face the risk of being evicted during outbreak of water-borne diseases during summer.

MCC officials hope to inaugurate the dedicated hawker zone at Ballal Circle ahead of Swachh Sarvekshan, the annual survey of India’s cities. They said that this hawker zone is the first among the three dedicated zones panned in city. A decision on the other two zones will be finalised soon.

The plan to construct dedicated hawker zones was mooted in 2004 and a six-member Committee was constituted to identify the zones after conducting a survey. In their earlier representations to the MCC, the hawkers said that they would prefer to conduct trade on the main roads near key commercial centres such as Sayyaji Rao Road, Gandhi Square, Ashoka Road and Dhanvanthri Road. But the MCC prevented them from carrying out business in these areas due to heavy rush and lack of space for free and safe movement of pedestrians.

There are over 3,500 hawkers in the city who set up shops after 6 pm and in the absence of dedicated hawking zones, they are spread out across areas including Bannur Road, Town Hall surroundings, Aziz Sait Nagar, Saraswathipuram, Ballal Circle, Vinaya Marga, Yoga Narasimhaswamy Temple Road, near Saraswathi Theatre, Vijayanagar Third Stage near Garudachar Layout, in front of Kuvempu Park at Kuvempunagar, Vijayanagar Water Tank Road, Kote Anjaneyaswamy Temple premises, Gandhi Square and near Mathrumandali Circle.

In its 2014-2015 budget, the MCC had earmarked Rs. 2 crore to identify suitable zones to create facilities for hawkers. The plan was to demarcate specified areas, earmark them for hawking and create separate platforms with basic amenities. Upgrading pushcarts, providing identification cards for vendors, and introducing health and life insurance schemes for them were part of the plans. However, the proposal was not implemented as some of the hawkers opposed the areas identified for hawking zones.

The civic body initially had tried to establish a food street on Valmiki Road but the Central Food Technological Research Institute objected citing security reasons as the area abutted its campus. Another attempt was made to shift hawkers close to the People’s Park. This too was opposed as the proposed zone was next to a college. In 2012, the then District Minister S.A. Ramdas suggested the idea of collecting fee from vendors and issue them trade licences to conduct business legally. In all, 39 zones were identified. This proposal too failed to take off.