Street vendors at TNagar
Ever been to TNAGAR? Been on the Usman road with shopping plans? Ever been forced to drive through Usman road? If you answered YES to any of these questions, then you would be as mad as I get when I talk about the nice place really battered and destroyed over the years. Thanks to the pipe laying activity by the corporation, walking through usman road has just got more difficult over past few months. Add to this scene, countless illegal street vendors trying to sell stuff right in the middle of the road and you have an atmosphere of chaos, celebration, arrogance, irritation and what not. TNagar is no longer one-shop-stop it used to be. Today, there are multiple shops (Saravana (Yeah! All those Saravana flavors together), Pothys, Rethna Stores, RMKV, SKC etc selling the same stuff. And on top of it there are these vendors selling interesting stuff at earthly prices on the road side.
I have often found myself wondering how the authorities are letting these hawkers sell their stuff on the roads? These vendors don’t pay tax, rent or anything to the government. Why then, is the government tolerant to them?
Couple of weeks ago, when I was at TNagar, a weird incident answered this question of mine. I was standing on the footpath, waiting for my mom to finish of her shopping and I saw a lad selling colorful laundry baskets. As I was watching, a well-dressed man walked to this lad and extended his hand. The lad, promptly placed a Rs. 5.00 note in his hand and the man walked away without any words exchanged between the two. I didn’t think much about this till another guy walked up and this mute drama repeated. By this lad turned around, saw me watching this whole episode and smiled.
I asked him – “Do you have to pay rent to be selling stuff here?”, He answered, “No. But, we have pay money to Police officers to sell stuff here. We pay Rs. 5.00 to 10 police men every day”. I asked him, “Really? Do you get receipts for this? Is this a fee levied by the government?” He smiled and answered, “No”. I try to push further, “Do you break even at the end of the day? After paying Rs. 50.00 to police men everyday? Is the business really worth it?”. He replied, “Oh Yeah! Business is great! We get back that Rs. 50.00 within minutes. If they allow us to do business here, we make more money than selling elsewhere.” With that, he went on with his business with the next customer.
Image Source: Wikimedia
I was left standing there..thinking. Ok. So, that guy dressed in civil dress was actually a Police Officer? And, this lad ‘bribes’ the police every day. The last I heard, paying bribe was as big a crime as taking bribe. But then, thats just idealistic crap that I can churn out sitting in luxury of my a/c office. It wouldn’t make any sense to that lad whose next meal is probably a question mark. Anyway, Lets look at this from the other end and do a little bit of math. A police officer gets Rs.5.00 from one vendor everyday. I guess there would easily be at least 200 vendors on usman road on any given day. So, that makes it Rs. 1000.00 per day. Now, If there is any truth in what the lad said, a police officer gets Rs. 30,000.00 a month from TNagar without doing any work. In fact he earns that much FOR not doing anything. Now, thats a pretty good pay for doing nothing. Of course, each police man is probably sharing that 30k with superiors and others. But, at least, now we have some reason (I really do not want to call this a reason as we don’t have any legal evidence that this practice is happening. It’s hear-say.) why no action is taken against these illegal business establishments. Apart from the amount of money the government loses in Taxes, there are more problems these vendors create – noise pollution, sound pollution and chaos. It makes shopping experience in TNagar so bad that whenever my family talks about going to TNagar for shopping I check whether I can get the same stuff elsewhere in the city.
This whole story may not be true. Maybe that lad just bluffed. I really do not wish to spread rumors here. So, I would like to emphasis that there has been no background check of any kind to make an accusation as serious as this. No investigations, No Sting operations. But, if there is any truth in the lad’s story, it would be food for thought for the Anti-Corruption bureau of Chennai (I hope there is something like that in Chennai).
–These vendors don’t pay tax, rent or anything to the government. Why then, is the government tolerant to them?
The same way as the Government is tolerant to these huge shops (Saravanas, Pothys and others) who have been given permission to build huge buildings without provisions for parking (in line with the crowd that comes to their shops), not giving bill if you don’t want to and causing far bigger headache than these street vendors.
Arun
Live and let live. Amen.
I too have seen such acts. But that was in Vadapalani. The only difference was the policemen used to reach the street vendor in uniform on a cycle. We used to watch the same scene several days. Here too, I go by the last paragraph. Most probably the policemen had helped the vendor financially and has come to take the money back. Who knows…
BTW, The less the tax collection through all means, the more the salaried people suffer…
The city should rent pavement space and make the whole area banned to cars, as some of the smaller roads in Pondy are.
Duh… Somebody saying’ happy independence day’. So, everybody is enjoying their independence. Lets join the celebration.
As I always say ‘India is doomed’.
Dear sir,
I went through your blogs.they are brilliant and evoked many reactions. since i could not get your e mail address i have used your comment box to put my request. I am a student of Asian College Of Journalism in chennai. we are creating an website to showcase the works of Chennai bloggers as a part of our project for the course. so i wish to interview you in this regard if you are interested either through Mail or if you wish i can come down to your place and interview personally. so i place my earnest request to you here for this. hoping for a prompt reply.thanking you,
yours sincerely
Ajoy Ashirwad
Dear sir,
I went through your blogs.they are brilliant and evoked many reactions. since i could not get your e mail address i have used your comment box to put my request. I am a student of Asian College Of Journalism in chennai. we are creating an website to showcase the works of Chennai bloggers as a part of our project for the course. so i wish to interview you in this regard if you are interested either through Mail or if you wish i can come down to your place and interview personally. so i place my earnest request to you here for this. hoping for a prompt reply.thanking you,
yours sincerely
Ajoy Ashirwad
Dear sir,
I went through your blogs.they are brilliant and evoked many reactions. since i could not get your e mail address i have used your comment box to put my request. I am a student of Asian College Of Journalism in chennai. we are creating an website to showcase the works of Chennai bloggers as a part of our project for the course. so i wish to interview you in this regard if you are interested either through Mail or if you wish i can come down to your place and interview personally. so i place my earnest request to you here for this. hoping for a prompt reply.thanking you,
yours sincerely
Ajoy Ashirwad
There are lot of street vendors who do not give money but continue to sell. Whenever they see a policeman coming in their direction they pick up their wares and start running. Once the policeman crosses that part of the road they are back with their wares…