Vendors selling pakoda and tea in Film City evicted after complaints of traffic jams in the area. They question action, ask what happened to PM promoting pakoda sellers.
New Delhi: Just outside the national capital, street vendors are finding it impossible to practise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s infamous ‘pakodanomics’.
About three weeks ago, the Noida Police evicted more than 70 street vendors selling food, cigarettes and tea from Film City in Noida’s Sector 16A – the new hub of media houses in the National Capital Region. The authorities and local administration, however, claimed that there was no official order to remove these stalls.
On 19 January, PM Modi had said that even opening a pakoda shop in front of your office counts as employment. “The person’s daily earning of Rs 200 will never come into any books or accounts. The truth is that a massive number of people are being employed,” he added.
Modi was responding to a question about the government’s electoral promise of delivering two crore jobs a year in an interview to Zee News.
Now, not only are Noida’s pakoda sellers unemployed but, as it turns out, the vendors believe it was the handiwork of high ranking editors of media houses in Film City that got them evicted in the first place.
Prime real estate
Speaking to ThePrint, Santosh, who had been selling tea and pakodas in Film City for over a decade, said a group of aggrieved vendors met union minister of state for culture Mahesh Sharma last week at Kailash Hospital, which is owned by him. The BJP MP represents Gautam Budh Nagar constituency, of which Noida is a part.
During the meeting, Sharma’s personal assistant told the vendors that a journalist had filed a complaint against them.
“They were saying that media personalities used to get stuck in traffic jams on the other side of the road and so they complained,” Santosh said.
The vendors handed a letter outlining their difficulties and demands to Sharma who reassured them that he would call the editors.
Manish Saxena, SHO at Sector 20 police station in Noida, under whose jurisdiction Film City falls, corroborated Santosh’s version.
“It was the chief editors, heads and owners of media houses in Film City that filed a complaint,” Saxena told ThePrint.
He added that the complaint was based on the fact that these vendors would block the streets, attract large crowds and cause traffic jams.
“They (media house editors) said it’s also because of these vendors that outside illegal elements come at night to drink alcohol and stand around eating snacks,” said Saxena.
As no real solution emerged from the meeting with the minister, the vendors are now planning to write a letter to some of the prominent editors working in Film City, pressing their case.
Directionless crusade
On 16 May, police vans from Sector 20 station arrived at Film City at 2:30 pm and asked all the vendors to permanently shut shop. “When we objected, they said unless we get licenses and orders from them we can’t operate,” Santosh said.
Even for the police, the instructions came without warning.
“We didn’t note down their names or locations, we were just told to remove whoever was squatting there. I can’t confirm the exact number, must have been about 40 or 50,” Saxena said.
Who gave these directions remains unclear.
Saxena believes that the order “must have come from the district magistrate, as the authorities handle these matters”. Mahendra Kumar Singh, the city magistrate of Noida, was recently quoted in Navbharat Times, denying this.
“The decision to remove the hawkers at the Film City has not been taken by the administration. The action has been taken by the Police itself. We don’t have any information about it,” said Singh.
Narayan, a 45-year-old evicted vendor who now sells cigarettes behind the cover of trees and cars at marked up prices, has the same story to tell.
“Before this meeting with Mahesh Sharma, they even went to Pankaj Singh. But he said it’s out of my hands.”
Pankaj Singh, the elder son of home minister Rajnath Singh, is the BJP MLA from Noida.
“We approached Panjak Singhji and told him about our daily issues, but he didn’t listen to us twice (sic),” Santosh added.
Digital protest
Narayan and Santosh use WhatsApp to stay in touch, not only with each other but with 28 other members of the ‘Film City group’ – a collective of samosa, pakoda, tea and cigarette vendors who suffered at the hands of the local law enforcement.
The group is used to coordinate venues and timings for meetings, share links and images of news articles relating to their demands, as well as encourage each other to use multimedia as a medium to protest. Members of the group have recorded themselves, as well as other vendors, expressing their concerns in short video segments.
They hope to compile, send, and share these snippets with ministers, and on social media, in order to create pressure on the authorities.
Prior to the eviction, these pakoda vendors would have made ideal citizens in Modi’s India – employed and digitally savvy. Now they use the PM’s words as a reminder of the injustice.
“Our Prime Minister says selling pakodas is a means of employment, but still they evict us from here,” said Santosh.
The road ahead
Even as Saxena asserts that “the hawkers are illegally using government land”, the vendors argue that despite the UP cabinet approving guidelines for vending zones in the city, nothing has been implemented on the ground.
“Our Yogiji (Uttar Pradesh CM Adityanath) passed it in Lucknow also, saying that once you get this (special vending zone), you will get permanent relief from these problems. But if they destroy our stalls before they even create the zones, they how will we get allotted anything?” asked Santosh.
“They make these promises before election time, but nothing ever comes of them,” he added.
Santosh still said the prime minister is a “good man” but questioned whether the BJP will be able to help the likes of him in the future. Narayan, on the other hand, said, “There is no point to the Modi government, if they can’t even assist the poor.”