KOLKATA, May 17: A massive anti-encroachment drive was conducted in Howrah and Sealdah railway station complexes on Sunday, removing illegal stalls and structures, officials said.
Howrah and Sealdah are terminal stations and among the busiest ones in the country, handling lakhs of suburban and express train passengers every day.
Bulldozers were used past midnight to demolish rows of makeshift shops and illegal structures along the stretch from the Ganga ghat to the Howrah station premises, officials said on Sunday.
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The operation, conducted jointly by the Railway Protection Force (RPF), Government Railway Police (GRP), railway authorities and Howrah City Police, saw heavy deployment of security personnel across the area to prevent any untoward incident during the eviction drive.
Bulldozers and earthmovers removed many temporary stalls and structures occupying footpaths and public spaces near the bus stand and Ganga ghat area as part of a railway land clearance initiative for passenger convenience.
Officials and local sources estimated that the operation removed around 150 hawkers and roadside shops from the Howrah station area. The affected establishments included vendors selling food items, fruits, toys and daily essentials.
The Railways did not issue an official statement. When asked, officials said it was part of a regular cleanup operation.
The encroachments had caused severe congestion and inconvenience for years to passengers entering and exiting the station, one of the country’s busiest railway terminals.
Visuals from the spot showed police barricading large sections of the area while bulldozers razed roadside shops selling food items, plastic goods and other daily-use articles.
Some hawkers alleged they were not given adequate prior notice before the demolition drive and claimed their livelihoods were severely affected.
Several traders said many of the stalls had existed for decades and demanded rehabilitation or alternative vending arrangements from the authorities.
“There should be beautification and proper management, but poor vendors should also be rehabilitated,” one hawker said.
“We will have to resort to suicide if no rehabilitation is provided,” another stall owner affected by the drive said.
Eyewitnesses said tension briefly flared up when some vendors attempted to resist the eviction, leading to heated exchanges and pushing between police personnel and protesters. However, the situation was later brought under control.
In a parallel anti-encroachment initiative, the Sealdah division also cleared hawkers and stalls from platforms 1 to 21 of the railway station to ensure smoother passenger movement inside the terminal, officials said.
An estimated 250 hawkers and stalls were removed from the station premises as part of the drive. Railway authorities said all the platforms had been made hawker-free and would now be reserved exclusively for the movement of passengers. Earlier, areas outside Sealdah railway station had also witnessed eviction drives aimed at clearing illegal encroachments and footpath occupation. (PTI)
