Rs 1000-7000 fine for selling items on footpaths, public places

NAGPUR: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has proposed to levy penalties of Rs 1,000 to Rs 7,000 on hawkers/ shopkeepers for encroaching roads, footpaths or public places while selling products. It will be for the first time the civic body will be fixing penalty for such encroachments.
Standing committee chairman Sandip Jadhav has organized committee's meeting on Thursday. In all, 29 proposals, including the enforcement department's proposal to slap penalties on encroachers, will be discussed in the meeting.

At present, the enforcement department seizes carts of hawkers or shopkeepers selling their products by the roadsides. The department releases the seized carts with material after levying some charges, which are not fixed. Municipal commissioner Ashwin Mudgal directed the department to recover 25% of total cost of carts or material as penalty. However, the department felt 25% penal charges will be too high and difficult to calculate. Therefore, the department has proposed fixed charges of Rs 1,000-2000 for two-wheeler cart, Rs 2,000-3,000 for three-wheeler cart, Rs 3,000-5,000 for four-wheeler cart (light weight) and Rs 5,000-7,000 for four-wheeler cart (heavy weight).

Another important proposal is to distribute sweaters to NMC school students at an estimated cost of Rs 66.14 lakh. The education department has proposed to deposit the total amount in a special account opened in a bank, select samples and appoint three or more dealers for supplying the sweaters to the students. The dealers will be selected through e-tendering process. Ironically, the decision exposes the education department as to how it neglects crucial issues related to the students. Already, half of December is over and around two months are left when the temperatures will start rising. The process to distribute sweaters will take one or more months. Thus, students will be getting the sweaters in February or even later that is considered as post-winter.

Another proposal is to allow cost escalation of under construction bridge at Mokshadham from Rs 5.74 crore to Rs 10.23 crore, procurement of papers for birth and death certificates for three years at a cost of Rs 2.01 crore, beautification of Naik talav at Rs 74.99 lakh, development of crematorium at Hudkeshwar at Rs 1.10 crore etc.