Dansihwar Hameed
Dozens of street vendors on Thursday staged a protest, raising slogans against the administration and Municipal Council kulgam, for failing to rehabilitate them properly.
The vendors were demanding that they be allowed to set up their stalls along roadsides or be provided with a suitable place to carry out their businesses. “They want us to shift to places where nobody comes. it makes no sense at all,” a protesting vendor told The Kashmiriyat.
He said that they should be allowed to function in the main towns and busy places where they can find customers, else their families would be face starvation. “We earn in the day, feed our families at the evening,” he said.
The street vendors said that an alternate place was provided a few months ago by the administration and now they were asked to leave this place also.
“We should be given some suitable alternate place or be allowed to work at the previous place. For the past year, we have been facing tremendous hardships,” said Bashir Ahmad, a street vendor.
The street vendors appealed to Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and the district administration to look into their sufferings and redress their genuine demands.
The district administration in Kulgam says that the street vendors have been removed from the town to decongest the main town of Kulgam, where residents complain of massive traffic jams.