Half a dozen streets of Karwan Bazar cleared
Dhaka North City Corporation authorities evicted scores of illegal street vendors, rent-a-car companies and hawkers from the capital's Karwan Bazar commercial area for the second consecutive day yesterday to free some half a dozen roads.
Two-thirds of the 72-feet wide roads in Karwan Bazar, home to scores of government and private offices and commercial establishments, had been illegally occupied.
Moreover, cars used to be parked illegally in multiple lanes, choking the area and making public movement difficult.
The corporation's Zone Executive Officer, Pronab Kumar Das, said eviction drives would continue until the roads are freed of illegal occupancy.
A mobile court was present on Wednesday to assist the drives and a similar drive is scheduled next Wednesday, he said.
The corporation had carried out similar drives several times before but the illegal occupants returned as soon as the officials left the scene.
A 16-feet-wide space would be kept on each side of the roads for orderly parking of cars while the rest (40 feet) would remain free for public movement, said Pronab.
He assured that from now on they would request police to keep the illegal occupants off the streets and ask the mobile court to penalise the offenders while the zone officer would carry out routine evictions.
“We will seek cooperation from the neighbourhood's government and private office authorities to follow the orderly car parking plan,” said Pronab.
Most of the area's commercial buildings either lack the parking facilities or have rented out their designated parking space to businesses.
The erstwhile Dhaka City Corporation partially leased out the neighbourhood's designated parking space and kept the rest of the free space abandoned for decades.
It has also erected rows of concrete shades, occupying the sidewalks along the kitchen market building.
Some of the street vendors claimed that they have been regularly paying local political thugs, the corporation officials and police to run their business.
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