Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) is gearing up to launch the second round of its hawker-zone survey in the city this week.
It was reportedly learnt that the civic body will begin its second round of survey from Thursday. The survey will cover several wards across areas: Sealdah Market, Bowbazar, Chandi Chowk, Ashutosh Mukherjee Road, Behala (part), College Street Market, among several other areas.
In the first round of the survey, KMC was able to enlist names of more than 7,000 hawkers. KMC officials who conducted the survey recorded the hawkers’ names and took their pictures and also noted down the addresses of the premises closest to the stalls. The surveyors also recorded the Aadhaar numbers of the hawkers.
“We are using an app developed by the state Information Technology (IT) department to geo tag genuine hawkers to a particular hawking zone. The app will store the information of the stalls. The name of the hawker and his or her picture will be stored and the information linked with Aadhaar. The Aadhaar-linking will ensure that one person does not have more than one stall in the city, as per instructions by the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee,” Debasish Kumar, Member Mayor in Council of Hawkers’ Rehabilitation Scheme had told the media during the first-round survey at Bertram Street in New Market area with the assistance of the local police station.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had instructed Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim, MLA Rashbehari Debasish Kumar, MLA Cossiore- Belgachia Atin Ghosh and Jadavpur MLA Debabrata Majumder to take the responsibility of identifying areas in the city where hawker zones can be made.