R. Alamelu, 50, has her elderly mother and two school-going granddaughters to take care of. While her son-in-law and his family took custody of her grandson when her daughter died, they refused to take care of the two girls.
Her only source of income was selling flowers on NSC Bose Road in the Broadway area, which came to a halt in June as the roughly 300 hawkers on the road were evicted to comply with an order of the Madras High Court.
“I am struggling to feed the children now. I have not paid back the debt incurred for my second daughter’s wedding. The lenders are pressuring me,” she said.
K. Kuppan, 31, a disabled person who sold small-sized earthenware on the road, is also similarly affected. Both he and his mother, who were hawking, have lost their livelihoods. “I am not exaggerating. I am eating only one meal a day now,” said Mr. Kuppan, who was making an average of ₹500 per day earlier.
A majority of these hawkers are women, who are the sole breadwinners of their families. They mainly sold fruits or flowers. While the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has earmarked alternative spots for them on stretches in TNPSC Road and Muthuswamy Road, none have relocated yet.
A few are now hawking in the lanes adjacent to NSC Bose Road like Bunder Street and Badrian Street. “Some shopkeepers are kindhearted enough to let us sell near their shop,” said A. Rani, adding that even here, the Corporation officials were not allowing them to conduct their business.
A few others have resorted to selling on NSC Bose Road, carrying fruits or flowers in small quantities in a bag without occupying any space. However, they are frequently chased away by GCC employees. “Now that I have stopped selling, I am tying flowers for shops in other places for meagre money. I am not even allowed to do that in a corner,” Ms. Alamelu said.
The hawkers complained that the alternative spots earmarked for them by the GCC did not provide scope for business and had hygiene and safety issues. The stretch earmarked on TNPSC Road is being misused as an open urinal with a damaged public toilet on the footpath, a visit by The Hindu recently showed.
“There are anti-social activities happening in these stretches in the evening. We are concerned about our safety and that of our goods,” said M. Uma, a vendor.
Importantly, they said their business would be greatly reduced if they moved here. D. Kumar, a vendor, said their customers did not visit NSC Bose Road with the sole objective of buying from them. “We benefit because of the shops here. People come to buy from them, and we also get business. The alternative spots do not have that benefit,” he said.
Alleging that the court’s verdict to evict hawkers itself was due to improper representation of their case by successive governments, V. Mageshvaran, State general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Street Vending Workers’ Federation, which is affiliated with the National Association of Street Vendors of India, said the alternative spots did not meet the criteria stipulated by the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act.
He said the government should try not to insist the hawkers in NSC Bose Road to relocate until new vending zones were finalised.
A senior official said the GCC was ready to address the hygiene and safety issues immediately if the hawkers agreed to move. “We have tried many times to organise a meeting to allocate designated spots to them. They have not cooperated,” he said, adding that allowing them to continue hawking on NSC Bose Road was not an option as both the Supreme Court and the Madras High Court had ordered against it.
