The Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) is currently undertaking a drive to remove encroachments by unauthorised vendors in the city. However, officials opine that rather than such period drives, the effective way for MCD to stop such encroachments is to penalise the encroaching vendors and keeping a regular check on such encroachments.

As per the officials, the authorised mobile vendors in the city are about 3,000 and stationary vendors are about 300. However, there are about 3,000 unauthorised vendors in the city. Such vendors not only encroach on public space but also cause traffic congestion at various places especially in the busy areas of the city. Officials generally impose fines on encroaching vendors but as soon as the team leaves, the vendors return to encroach on the same place. Also, MCD lacks proper staff to keep a regular check in the city.

“We only impose fines and attempt to keep an eye on the city. However, it is a tough task as we have 100 wards and only four supervisors. One supervisor handles nearly 25 wards. There are 3,000 mobile vendors and 300 stationary vendors in the six vendors zones situated at various locations in the 60 wards. We do have a plan for creating more vendors zones in the new 40 wards which would help the vendors and also reduce the disorder on the roads,” official added.

When asked about it mayor Sunil Uniyal ‘Gama’ said, “The issue is in our knowledge. For this, a private company will be hired to keep a record of the vendors and collect the monthly charge from them. We also have a plan to build new vendors zones. The work in this will start soon after the withdrawal of the election model code of conduct.”