KMC's anti-vagabond drive runs into resistance, ops called off
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Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and cops on Tuesday started a drive, for the first time this year, to oust pavement dwellers from several prime city areas but faced stiff resistance and called off the drive.
Though the civic officials and cops during the special drive seized belongings of around 200 pavement dwellers, the civic officials finally convinced only five such dwellers to go to the KMC-run shelter house.
According to plans, three different KMC teams started the drive from three locations: Park Circus-Beckbagan zone, Ballygunge-Gariahat zone, and Hazra-Alipore zone. When the civic officials and cops reached the Park Circus-Beckbagan belt and asked the pavement dwellers to move out of the approach road to AJC Bose Road, they fled.
The civic officials seized their belongings and moved forward. When the cops and civic officials were busy playing a cat-and-mouse game in the Park Circus area, the second team in the Gariahat area faced real trouble as the pavement dwellers under the flyover turned violent.
The cops present in large numbers helped the civic officials in removing their belongings. The pavement dwellers refused to move from the space, expressing their inability to move to a shelter house in the Kalighat area.
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In the Hazra-Alipore belt, sensing a civic drive, some pavement dwellers fled.
Later, the KMC brass sent officials from its social welfare department and roped in a couple of NGOs that work among the homeless to conduct counselling so that the defiant pavement dwellers accept the civic proposal and leave the space. "We gave strict instructions to our officials and the cops not to do bodily damage to any of the pavement dwellers even if they don't fall in line.
We have sought help from two NGOs who have experience in handling such issues.
We hope this will yield some sort of results," said a senior civic official.
However, the KMC brass has asked the cops to keep a constant vigil on the pavement dwellers and get ready for fresh drives in the coming weeks. According to a KMC source, the civic body planned a major drive to remove pavement dwellers after receiving frequent calls from across the city complaining about illegal encroachment of roads and spaces under flyovers.
"We planned to conduct a raid only to clear roads and civic infrastructures.
The complainants also expressed their apprehensions about the law-and-order situation at night. But we don't want the pavement dwellers to be deprived of their right to shelter. We have kept several shelter homes ready for them," said a KMC official.
According to a KMC social welfare department official, the department runs seven such shelter homes across the city. Sources said the civic body planned to accommodate pavement dwellers from the Gariahat-Ballygunge zone at the Kalighat shelter home and dwellers from Park Circus-Beckbagan at a Beleghata shelter home.
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