Hawkers’ zones at last in Vizag

Visakhapatnam: The long wait seems to be coming to an end. The Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) has finally identified hawkers’ zones to make the city acquire an aesthetic look and provide some space for pedestrians to walk and traffic to move without any hitch.

There are several junctions and roads in the city occupied by various hawkers, creating inconvenience to the traffic and to the pedestrians. The GVMC has been trying to move the hawkers to zones set up for the purpose for the last one decade but in vain.

Now the GVMC identified 11 vendor zones and invited objections and suggestions for the selected areas to be declared as hawkers’ zones. After examining the response and inputs, more number of hawker zones will be set up at other locations in the GVMC jurisdiction.

According to the GVMC assessment, there are over 15,000 vendors in the city and already over 7,000 hawkers were given identity cards. There are six zonal offices in the GVMC besides one in Anakapalle town.  “The motto is to make the city beautiful and ensure free flow of traffic.

With this hawkers of all merchandise will be available at one place which would be convenient not only to hawkers but also to the consumers,” said Commissioner of GVMC M Hari Narayanan. He said the identified sites for the zones are spacious and would be very much suitable to the vendors.

There will be 11 zones in the first phase and a few more would come up in the second phase, he said. 

SELECTED AREAS 
Zone 1 (3): Near Thotagaruvu Junction located between Hanumanthawaka Junction to Arilova and Midhilapuri VUDA Colony Road and Madhurawada Chandrampalem village.
Zone 2 (1): Near SFS School.
Zone 3 (1): Opposite GVMC Fruit Market near Prasad Gardens.
Zone 4 (1): East Park, Madhavadhara.
Zone 5 (4): Near Tehasildar office, near Gajuwaka GVMC Zonal Office, 130 ft road in 52nd division and back side of Sudha hotel.
Zone 6 (1): Near Veterinary hospital at Baji Junction.
Anakapalle (1): Four-road Junction, opposite Nehru Chowk.

By VKL Gayatri