Left out hawkers demand stalls at Lall Bazaar

ALL SIKKIM HAWKERS ASSOC PLACES 3-POINT DEMAND WITH UD&HD
GANGTOK, 28 May: The All Sikkim Hawkers Association [ASHA] today marched in strength to the Urban Development and Housing Department [UD&HD], their numbers making a veritable gherao, demanding allotment of stalls to the left out hawkers totaling around 125 at the Kanchanjunga Shopping Complex [erstwhile Lall Bazaar].
Addressing the media, the ASHA vice president, Lakpa Sherpa, informed that in the year 2006, the hawkers and traders of old Lall Bazaar were promised a stall each at the new complex by the department, but after completion of the construction work only 262 hawkers and 225 traders were allotted stalls while 125 hawkers were left without any allotment.
These 125 hawkers possess trade licenses but are operating at Lall Bazaar without any proper stalls. The association representatives, in their meeting with UD&HD officials placed a three-point charter of demands seeking stall allotment orders for the left out within a week, 2002 to be made the cut-off year for the allotment of space or stalls in the complex and the conditions placed by the Gangtok Municipal Corporation or UD&HD on allotments to hawkers be lifted.
Mr. Sherpa iterated that the department, in the year 2006, had promised that stalls would be allotted to the left out hawkers and stressed that until and unless the problem is solved, it will keep creeping up in regular intervals.
At today’s meeting, the UD&HD is informed to have asked the protesting hawkers for the document in which the department had assured allotment to the left out, as claimed by the hawkers.
The association on the other hand has also expressed gratitude towards the GMC Mayor for setting up the vegetable market at Lall Bazaar, which according to them, the GMC accomplished in a span of four days, a task that the UD&HD could not do in the past six years.