The crackdown on hawkers at stations is a step taken rather late and caused many deaths in FOBs due to overcrowding. It is advisable to provide hawkers a separate zone in the outskirts of the city to avoid stampede in future. Both political wings and BMC tried hard to get rid of the hawkers at the gateway of the station but failed to bring a solution to the expected level. Now the Maharashtra Government is also joining to take swift action and intensify crackdown if the hawkers failed to disobey the strictures in this regard. Human life is precious and both the roads and the footpaths are overcrowded and make the movement rather difficult. To add salt to the wound, the hawkers have taken shelter under the FOBs and that present a shabby picture and the space is limited due to their unauthorised occupation. It is time to expand FOBs to almost double the size of the present FOBs available and thereby can limit the accidents to the minimum. By monitoring the foot over bridges through security guards and avoiding hawkers in the FOB pavements leading to the stairs cause a jittery and the chance of accident become really high. It is now or never situation to manage the peak hour crowds to avoid major mishaps over FOBs.
Nickil Krishnan
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
