Built on the lines of Dakshineswar Skywalk, KMC Officials said work is set to begin on the Rs 80-crore project at Kalighat, which was stalled for over two years due to stall owners’ refusal to move out. The shifting work of the hawkers is expected to be completed in the next one week. “After the shifting is over, the entire hawker market will be dismantled. After its demolition, the construction work of the skywalk will start. We want to complete the construction work by early 2023,” said Debashish Kumar, a member of the KMC Board of Administrators (BoA), who has been given the responsibility of overseeing the prestigious project.
The KMC brass has also started talks with hawkers who will need to be temporarily relocated during the construction of the skywalk. “There are 680 hawkers on Kali Mandir Road. Of these, 180 own stalls on Hawkers Corner and the rest do business on the road and sidewalk. Temporary stalls have been set up in JD Park. The remaining hawkers doing business on the road will have to move to the neighboring lanes and lanes so that the construction of the project can start,” said a KMC official.
The 400-metre long skywalk on Kali Mandir Road was conceived in September 2018, following which a consultancy firm was appointed to prepare a detailed project report. Work on the project was to begin in 2019 with a deadline set for 2021.
“The project got delayed due to the compensation demanded by the hawkers. The talks were derailed due to the pandemic. The hawkers were demanding a one-time ex-gratia payment of Rs 25,000-30,000 per stall to compensate for the loss of business due to relocation. He had argued that business was affected by the pandemic anyway and any further loss would make livelihood difficult. Finally, the KMC has decided to pay Rs 10,000 to each stall-owner for the facility to temporarily shift them to JD Park,” said a source in the civic body.
Banku Saha, an assistant secretary at Kalighat Hawkers Corner, said the stall-owners decided to step out to help the civic body come out of the impasse and start the project without any delay.
An official of the KMC civil engineering department said survey work, soil testing and mapping of underground utilities have already been completed at the site. “We need to relocate some underground utilities once the hawkers market is over,” the official said.
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