Traffic jams persist as vegetable vendors refuse to move

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Published on December 3, 2020 by

Vegetable vendors refuse to leave main road

Vendors concerned over the safety and space in the ground allocated by Municipal Corporation

Kanpur: Vegetable vendors refuse to move to the ground allocated by the Kanpur Municipal
Corporation (KMC) because they are afraid of high tension wires in the area. “We were
allocated the ground by Municipal Corporation, but all of us protested. We refuse to shift to the
ground because the space was very less for all of us and there are high voltage live wires on
top. Who can guarantee our safety?” says Akhilesh Kumar, a vegetable vendor in Chapera
market area. In previous instances high voltage live wires have fallen on the ground and
electrocuted stray cows. The space provided poses another problem since the ground can
accommodate only up to 30 carts, whereas there are 86 vendor carts in total on the road.
Local shoppers and shopkeepers in the area complain of traffic congestion due to the vendor
carts on the main road and garbage accumulation due to the vegetable waste. Shirish Tandon, a
shopkeeper talks about how the garbage keeps on piling up on a daily basis. A local shopper,
Sanjay Kumar Gupta says, “The situation is worse in the evenings. The traffic is so bad that it
becomes difficult to move even a two wheeler.”
Despite these complaints, KMC has refused to move the vendors to another location. Land
allotment officer, Nirmala Katiyar, under whom the ground was allocated, says, “The vendors
cannot be shifted anywhere else other than that place because that would require a license.
We are looking for possible solutions that could be implemented, we also have to keep in mind
the safety of the vendors, but it is going to take time.” Zubeena, an old vegetable vendor says
that all of them will shift to any allocated ground provided it is safe and spacious to
accommodate all the vendors and their carts.
Mr. Jyoti Prasad, town planner at Kanpur Development Authority says either a grill should be
built under the wires to prevent them from falling on the ground or a completely separate
vendors’ zone must be assigned outside the present market area by the Kanpur Municipal
Corporation to ensure that the vendors are safe and have enough space to set up their carts.
Currently the traffic congestion continues to be a problem as the vendors stay on the main road
and wait for a possible solution to their concerns.
Keywords/tags- traffic; vendors; Municipal Corporation; live wires; safety.

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