Clean footpaths without hawkers has made life easy for Mumbaikars who can now make use of them for walking for which they are meant and Mumbai truly looks great with this new makeover. However, one is not sure how long this will last as past experience shows that hawkers would be back as corruption rules the city and they would bribe the authorities to be back in business.
Government should earmark some place for hawkers to do business after charging reasonable amount as this would give employment to the poor. Else, those unemployed would indulge in theft and crime which is a social evil. Poor people too would benefit by ‘Hawker Zones’ as not everybody can afford to buy at departmental stores in today’s world of GST and rising inflation.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
