Pali Hill locals protest against hawking zone plan

About 300 residents of Bandra's posh Pali Hill, including celebrities like Rishi Kapoor, Vishal Dadlani, Prem Chopra and designer Manish Malhotra, carried out a silent protest against BMC’s recent move to mark the area as a hawking zone. Amid high drama on Sunday evening, BJP MLA Ashish Shelar assured the residents of not approving the master plan in its current form. "There are numerous errors in the plan, and it will not be cleared like this", Shelar said.

Speaking on the BMC’s move, veteran actor Rishi Kapoor said, “BMC should understand that this is not a commercial area like Hill road or Linking Road where the population is dense. This is peaceful, residential area. In fact its useless to bring hawkers here when there is already so much of traffic with cars parked on both sides of the road. I am not against the hawkers, I completely sympathise with them. But BMC should review its plan. Pali Hill already has major issues. Why is it that places like Malabar Hill where ministers live is not proposed as a hawking zone, why only Pali Hill?”

Some residents also laid down flat on the roads as a mark of protest. They fear that with the recent move, it will add to chaos and harm the sanctity of the area. "We are not against hawkers. But the authorities should allocate hawkers zones in a planned manner”, said Rishi Kapoor.

Source: rediff.com