Kathmandu, January 31:

Footpaths crowded with street vendors and narrow roads have been making it difficult for

pedestrians to walk around main bazaars of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC).

Ratnapark, Sundhara and New Baneshwor are some of the crowded bazaars. Roads are very narrow there, and there is no place to walk on footpaths crammed with the vendors. Says Sharmila Adhikari, a pedestrian at Bhotahity, “If we walk along the road, there is the fear of accident. There is no place to put foot on the footpath.”

Says Rajiv KC, a student, “The road is covered with vehicles and footpath is full of street vendors. Pedestrians have no place to walk on.” Street vendors have woes of their own. “What else can we? We have no other option to eke out a living,” says Shanker Chhetri, a street vendor at Sundhara. Chhetri “has no desire to give continuity to the business”. “There is no other option to make a living,” he says. Questions Amrit Dahal, another street vendor based near the Bir Hospital, “Who wants to become a street vendor if a respectable job is available?” He says he earns around Rs 3,000 daily and has three dependents.

“According to KMC rules, street vendors can operate only in the evening,” says Dhanapati Sapkota, head of the Implementation Division of the KMC. “So far this fiscal, we have caught around 3,000 street vendors for flouting the rules and collected revenue around Rs 1.5 million as fine.”

“Street vendors are a big problem,” he says. “There is no place where these people can be shifted. Operating night market is not possible due to security reasons.”