The Hindu            12.01.2011

Unauthorised hawkers protest eviction move

They had returned after being evicted last year to facilitate modernisation of the old bus stand

Unauthorised hawkers selling fruits on the platforms of the old bus stand here staged a protest when authorities of the Vellore Corporation came with the police to evict them on Tuesday.

After the eviction of hawkers last year to facilitate the modernisation of the old bus stand, it was free from hawkers for nearly three months. However, they returned recently and started selling fruits on passenger bays and carried on business, causing hardships to passengers. Under these circumstances, the Corporation authorities, along with police officials, came to the bus stand on Tuesday morning to evict the hawkers.

The hawkers, supported by volunteers of the Vidudhalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), protested the eviction and prevented the police and Corporation staff from carrying out the operation. S. Seetharam, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Vellore, who was at the spot, tried to pacify the hawkers. When he asked them to remove their belongings and leave, with the assurance that he would arrange for a meeting between them and the Mayor and the Commissioner of the Corporation to solve the issue, the agitators wanted the Mayor to speak to them.

When Neela Chandrakumar, urban district secretary of the VCK, spoke to the Mayor over phone, the latter contacted Town Planning Officer Kannan and asked him to allow the hawkers to sell the existing stocks of fruits that they had.

K.R. Selvaraj, Corporation Commissioner, told The Hindu that the Corporation was, at present, engaged in carrying on renovation of the bus stand.

The renovation works included the laying of tiles on the floor and walls of the platforms, renovation of the existing toilets and urinals, construction of new urinals, installation of fixed steel chairs on the platforms and installation of a reverse osmosis plant and supply of purified drinking water to passengers.

Devakumar, Corporation engineer, said that the entire work was being carried out at a cost of Rs.40 lakh.