The Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority (NDITA) has banned lighting stoves and putting up plastic awnings at footpath stalls in Sector V, the information technology hub of Salt Lake in Kolkata. Footpath cooking has stopped entirely, and stall owners now cook at home in the morning and bring the food in, Ei Samay reported.
Of Sector V's 973 stalls, 90 percent sell food. Some 320,000 people work in the area's IT firms and other government and private offices, and many relied on cheap footpath food to avoid the high prices of restaurants and food delivery apps.
Customers are now turning away from cold food and food is going to waste, leaving vendors in serious financial trouble. Sumit Chowdhury, who lives in Barasat, said he has been bringing a packed lunch from home for months for fear that eating morning-cooked food at midday will upset his stomach.
Prasad Mondal, secretary of the Nabadiganta Parisheba Samiti, said the stall owners followed every instruction the administration gave three months ago, but none of its promises were kept.
NDITA sources say no one is being evicted and vendors have only been asked to follow some rules under the law. An official of the Nabadiganta industrial township said the rules were introduced for safety and a meeting with the stall owners will be held very soon.
The report is by Ei Samay's Shyamgopal Roy and Debarghya Bhattacharya.
Photo: Biswarup Ganguly / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Source: Ei Samay
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