MCC Evicts Street Vendors for Not Following Social Distancing- Also Shuts Shops Selling Non Essentials

MCC Evicts Street Vendors for Not Following Social Distancing- Also Shuts Shops Selling Non Essentials

 Mangaluru: We all know the Smart City-Mangaluru is a haven of street vendors and Road side Mobile canteens. The City is already seeing hundreds/thousands of street vendors who are creating a havoc and inconveniences to the pedestrians and motorists, occupying the prime spots on the footpath and side of the streets, making it hard for people to walk and motorists to park their vehicles. Even in spite of MCC now and then does surprise raids on these street vendors, thereby evicting them and many a times even demolishing their make shift shops- these vendors come back and do their business no matter what.

Recently after the district administration shut down the Central Market for people, and barricaded all the entrances to this Market, the street vendors who were doing business near to the Central Market moved to the road sides at other parts of the City, after the admin allowed the shopping time to buy fruits, veggies and other essentials between 7 am and 12 noon. And during the last few days, one could see a bunch of street vendors selling fruits, vegetables and even fish on road side- and MCC took it easy on these street vendors.

But when complaints pour in that these street vendors don’t follow the guidelines of Coronavirus, and also that social distancing was not maintained, the officials of Mangaluru City Corporation decided to evict these street vendors for violating the covid-19 norms. The eviction started yesterday, and the officials gave these street vendors that they should follow social distancing, and if they don’t they would be evicted. But these street vendors didn’t give any heed to the officials orders, instead were carrying on with their trade violating Covid-19 guidelines.

Therefore this morning, after a final warning that the street vendors should not operate their business on roadside, the MCC officials with a help of a police constable evicted a bunch of street vendors, in various parts of the City. The officials also made the shop owners who were selling non-essential items, like cigarettes, gutka, etc to close their shops during the lockdown period. Even a couple of shops dealing with scarp were also shut down by MCC, since a few rag pickers were gathered in front of these shops, trying to exchange the scarp for money, but no social distancing was followed.

Now that the MCC officials have given a warning to all these street vendors not to operate their business tomorrow, but no matter what, how many times these vendors are warned or evicted, they still keep coming back and run their street side trade.