While street hawkers and pavement vendors accuse authorities of denying them their livelihoods by removing their stalls from the roadsides during several raids last week, pedestrians in the busy streets of Colombo Fort and Nugegoda have welcomed the move.
The vendors say their livelihoods have been snatched away due to the high handed actions of the authorities, who have failed to find them an alternative source of income.
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| Cleared up pavement in Nugegoda |
However, pedestrians said hawkers who occupied most of the pavement area caused much inconvenience to them. "Some of the pavement vendors are aggressive and force people who walk by to buy their goods. They also obstruct pedestrians and it is an ideal spot for pick-pockets too," a pedestrian said.
W. A. Udeni Kumara who had a toy business on the pavement opposite the Fort Railway Station for 25 years told the Sunday Times they were not given prior warning of the eviction. “They came around midnight, dismantled the stalls and took away the boards,” he said.
Wijesinghe Ranjith and K. Y. Gunadasa, two senior vendors on the same pavement recalled a similar incident in 1977.
“We have been doing business here for over 30 years now. We remember something similar taking place in 1977. But it was not sudden like this,” they said, almost in unison.They said their children too are engaged in the same business, selling various products on the pavements of Pettah, and are now without an income.
Jagath Pradeepthika, propaganda secretary of an association of small scale businessmen and a street vendor himself, said, during the last phase of the war against the LTTE, street vendors of Fort were instrumental in ensuring the safety of the city, frequently helping the police and the armed forces in their numerous security checks, sometimes even checking garbage bins.
“We went out of our way to help to keep Pettah safe. We would check buses and transformers for bombs. Even the President acknowledged our contribution. There are bigger and more pressing problems in this country than pavement businesses. Around 38,000 street vendors and their extended families depend on this mode of income islandwide,” he said.
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| Scene in Pettah after the clearing up operation. |
It was the same story in Nugegoda, although, in their case, they had been given warning a few hours ahead of the eviction.
“Around 5.30 p.m. on Wednesday the police told us that the stalls would be removed later that night,” said R. A. Somaratne, a street vendor who had set up his business near the Nugegoda Railway Station.
A group of his colleagues who spoke to the Sunday Times complained they have been forgotten after the elections.
“We are poor people. This is not fair. But if we’re given an alternative, we are more than willing to cooperate and accept the alternative and move out of this place,” said Felicia Athukorala, the only female in the group. The vendors in Fort, too, expressed similar sentiments.
However, Police Spokesman SP Prashantha Jayakodi denied the charge that the vendors were not given a warning prior to the raid.
“We gave them a warning beforehand. We had received complaints from the public about these pavement stalls. The police has the authority to do this. It was not a sudden decision,” he said. |
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