Thane residents start postcard campaign to tackle hawker menace

In a novel protest the residents of a dozen major housing societies along Thanersquos Gladys Alvares Marg on Monday dashed off 1000odd postcards to Thane Municipal Commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal seeking his intervention in the hawkersrsquo menace faced by them and demanding declaration of the entire stretch of GA Marg as a ldquoNo Hawking ZonerdquoThe residents who have been crusading against scores of hawkers occupying the pavements of the Gladys Alvares Marg for the past two months resorted to the postcard campaign to mount pressure on the Thane civic chief to intervene in the situation and call a meeting of residents representatives to evict hawkers from the busy road and declare the area as ldquoNo Hawkers ZonerdquoAlso ReadThane Bodies of two teens found in Mithagar creek in KoprildquoDespite our repeated representations a silent morcha a meeting with local corporators and scores of tweets the TMC chief had not bothered to respond to our crusade As a means to reach out to him we have posted 1052 postcards addressed to the Thane Municipal Commissioner Jaiswal today We have sought an audience and a permanent solution to the hawkersrsquo menacerdquo T N Raghunatha secretary of Eden Woods complex one of the crusading complexesldquoOur patience was running out We had to do something different Thatrsquos why we resorted to mass postcard campaign to force the TMC chief to act We will continue our crusade in a peaceful manner till our objective is metrdquo Arvind Nadkarni Secretary of Lokpuram another leading housing complex saidAlso ReadMumbai Central Railway now gets official hawkers to curb illegal onesAfter months of protests that saw them make several representations to the Thane Municipal Corporation TMC seeking removal of illegal hawkers from their area the residents had taken out a silent morcha on June 2 and followed it up with a public meeting with local corporators on June 9 to press for declaration of Gladys Alvares Marg as a ldquonohawkingrdquo zone and shifting of the licenced hawkers to designated hawking zones in the neighbourhoodApart from Eden Woods and Lokpuram the residents from other housing complexes like Niharika Vasundhara Glendale Lok Upvan PhaseI and II Shubharambh Ashar Residency Hill Garden and Valley Towers are participating in the crusade against hawkersldquoBecause of hawkersrsquo menace the residents ndash particularly senior citizens have no footpaths to walk We have traffic jams every evening on GA Marg which has been ironically been declared by the TMC as a model road Illegal hawkers and food trucks pose a health hazard Mishaps are waiting to happen as use gas cylindersstovesrdquo Raghunatha saidRaghunatha and Kulkarni slammed that the TMC for its failure to use a fullfledged market constructed by it at Khevra Circle for accommodating the legal hawkers there ldquoAfter the construction the TMC ndash for reasons best known to it handed over the structure to the office of Slum Rehabilitation Authority SRA Our demand is that the TMC should take back the premises from SRA and use the place to accommodate the licenced vegetable and fruit vendors thererdquo they saidPrithvi Raj a senior citizen who along with several other residents has put to scores of tweets drawing the TMCrsquos to the hardships faced by the residents in the area said ldquoI am surprised that despite our having put out 100odd tweets addressed to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis the TMC chief Mayor and others Mr Jaiswal has chosen not to intervene in the situation Being a public servant it is time he looks into and redresses our grievancerdquoCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates