Hawkers earning lesser after being relocated to complex from pavements

By Abhishikta Sunkari | August 30, 2023

Many street hawkers at Pondy Bazaar Shopping Complex have vacated due to congestion, poor sanitation and overcrowding in the complex.

About 420 out of 600 shops at the complex have been vacated. “Government has allotted this space in the building to set up shops, but the business is very dull,” said Sathish Kumar, one of the vendors who owns a toy shop.

The lack of space has brought down the footfall of customers in these shopping complexes and reduced the profits of the shop keepers. The hawkers had been shifted to an organized place from the pavement in 2013, when the government has initiated the Pedestrian Plaza Project, a collaborative effort between Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), Chennai Smart City Limited, Oasis Designs Inc, Jana Urban Space 

“Earlier, I earned Rs. 2000 a day on footpaths, but now I hardly earn Rs. 400 a day,” said Magendra, one of the shopkeepers. Customers are unaware of the shops inside the building and they do not prefer coming inside a crowded complex, according to him.

In 2019, around 200 shop vendors had collectively visited the GCC office and requested permission to set up their business on the footpaths, but the Corporation refused. 

“The government had to allot space for more than 600 street vendors, which was challenging,” said Rajendiran, the Chief Engineering Officer at GCC. “The budget of Rs.35 crores was not enough to allocate shops for more than 600 hawkers”. 

The revenue collected from rent of these shops has decreased to Rs. Two Lakh, from Rs. Six Lakh, over the past few months, with the rent per shop at Rs. 1050.

With shopkeepers leaving the complexes, the smart city plan of the government has left the hawkers worse off than before. The complexes have inadequate space for the large number of street hawkers that were being re located. “In an ideal scenario, the complex should have been built for 10 floors with lift facilities,” said S. Rajendiran. “If it is for 10 floors, then everyone would have got enough space to set up their shops. But government people won’t implement such ideas in a short span of time.”