No more hawker menace near schools, colleges, hospitals etc in Chennai - New tough rules from GCC now!!
The hawkers creating menace near the schools, colleges, hospitals etc in Chennai would soon become a thing of the past. Thanks to the new tough rules from GCC.
The news now is that GCC or Greater Chennai Corporation has come out with a new policy that bans vendors near the schools, colleges, hospitals etc. The vendors would not be allowed to enter the arterial roads in Chennai. The main objective behind this new policy is to control around one lakh street vendors.
This policy has been approved by the town vending committee of GCC and has been notified in the TN government gazette in July. In the month of August, this new rule came into effect in Chennai.
It must be noted that last week the officials from GCC removed atleast 78 roadside shops in the busy Anna Nagar Second Avenue. According to the new rule only 2.5% of wards population could be vendors. It is said that the stalls must be limited to 6#4 metres and must have bilingual signage. Point is that no vending would be allowed within 100m of schools/hospitals and 150m of major administrative and transit hubs.
Prohibition of vendors in the arterial roads:
Various arterial roads in Chennai where the vendors would not be allowed to enter are Rajaji Salai, Wallajah Road, Greenways Road, TTK Road, Valluvar Kottam High Road, Nelson Manickam Road plus other major roads like Anna Salai, Arcot Road, PH Road etc. The vendors would not be allowed to enter 2 way streets that are less than 21m in width. It is learnt that 3m to 5m roads in Chennai would permit vending if it is one way and 5m to 6m roads would allow vending on one side. Four hours vending per day permission would be given by GCC on the interior roads in the city.
According to an officer from the town vending committee, longer stretches have been designed by GCC for accommodating more vendors. Example is MKB Nagar North Avenue Road. He spoke about how GCC would remove 50 vendors from interior roads and place them on longer 4-way and 2-way stretches on one side. By this, the stretch would be turned into a shopping or food zone and interior neighbourhoods would be decongested.
Formation of division wise enforcement teams:
It is learnt that the GCC has formed division wise enforcement teams for enforcing the new tough rule. The teams would have executive engineers as the head. For patrolling, 2 vehicles per zone have been procured by the civic body. Patrolling would be carried out by the officials in the breakfast and dinner hours. The licences would be limited to 35000 vendors only and the rest 75000 vendors would not be given licences.
