Time to stop illegal leasing of footpaths

The amount of money extorted illegally from hawkers in capital Dhaka might surprise anyone. Media reports suggest a staggering amount of over Tk80 million is extorted every day making the annual total at Tk30 billion. The figure is equivalent to a quarter of the two city corporations' annual budgets combined. A cartel of local leaders of the ruling political party and members of the law enforcement agency extort the money through their hired collectors called 'linemen'. After any political changeover, just some faces in the cartel change, but not illegal practice. They operate as before.
Ideally, no unauthorised shops or stalls - be it makeshift or permanent - should be there on footpaths, but here in Dhaka they exist not on footpaths, but also on roads in many areas. In some places permanent shops have been erected on footpaths, interrupting the movement of pedestrians for whom they are meant. Such grabbing of footpaths has become so prevalent that most city people have accepted that they are not for their use and the city authorities have forgotten to reclaim them.
Given the socio-economic situation, it might be hard for the authorities to free all the footpaths from vendors. There is no denying that numerous families, particularly of the low-income bracket, who cannot afford to purchase or rent a shop, have earned their living from footpath stalls and that their eviction might leave them with no source of income. During the 2007-2008 caretaker regime, all the footpaths were freed and unauthorised structures on government land demolished across the country, but towards the end of its rule, the administration went for an alternative. Friday market - makeshift stalls on footpaths on the weekend - was introduced at around that time. However, the previous footpath anarchy staged a comeback during the rule of subsequent governments with the situation getting from bad to worse. Now it is hard for anyone to walk on footpaths in busy areas like Gulistan, Motijheel, Farmgate, New Market, Mirpur and Jatrabari because of the high concentration of illegal stalls. According to Bangladesh Hawker Federation, there are around 200,000 vendors in Dhaka with the number going far beyond 300,000 during the month of Ramadan. They all are compelled to pay extortion on a regular basis at the cartel-fixed rate.
With the recent political changeover, new faces have started to appear on the scene to continue the illegal practice. Newspaper reports say students, who are managing traffic in the capital for the last couple of days, caught several newly emerged youths when they were trying to extort money from hawkers in the Sadarghat and Mirpur areas.
The evil nexus of political activists and law enforcement agency personnel extort a huge amount of money from vendors at a time when city corporations struggle to ensure minimum civic amenities like constructing roads, installing street lights and spraying insecticides for fund constraints. Had the city corporations been able to legally collect a portion of the money transacted in the illegal leasing of footpaths in the capital, they could have served the city dwellers much better.
As it might not be feasible to put a complete halt to hawking on footpaths, the authorities could bring it under a system that would be beneficial to the city corporations, city dwellers and hawkers too. The city authorities could designate spaces in some less busy areas for hawkers and lease them at certain rates, driving out all the extortionists from the streets.

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