Veggie vendors come under hygiene scannerKids

BMC initiates action after video of drain storage goes viral.

Screengrab of the viral video that showed vegetables being stored in a drain.

Mumbai: After the video showing vegetable vendors at Vakola storing vegetables overnight inside drains went viral, the health department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has said that they would be conducting drives across the city and registering FIRs against vendors found to be storing or selling vegetables in unhygienic conditions.

“We have decided to start repeated action in all such places where these vegetables sellers and other hawkers sit, whenever they are spotted hiding vegetables or other goods in drains, FIRs shall be registered against them,” said a senior ward official from the H/east ward, which includes Vakola area. He added that all officials from the ward have been directed to lodge FIRs wherever such activity is found. Further, the medical department of the ward revealed that the saleable goods would be confiscated for testing.

The video of hawkers hiding saleable goods like vegetables and fruits in the open drains went viral on Friday. The video clearly showed that the hawkers, in a bid to avoid civic action, hid their goods in drains and removed them once the civic officials left the site. Civic officials from the ward suspect that this is the tactic of hawkers to malign the name of BMC officials.

Since the past few months, hawkers encroaching pedestrian spaces near railway stations and footpaths have been facing the ire of the civic body. Several hawkers faced public ire in the wake of the Elphinstone Road bridge stampede in September last year where 23 lives were lost. Last year in October, around 600 hawkers faced civic action.