Ahmedabad: Under a new rule, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) will start cracking down on street vendors selling non-vegetarian food in public places. On Monday, the Town Planning (TP) committee of the AMC took the decision of making public areas free of street vendors selling non-vegetarian food items.
AMC’s TP committee chairman Devang Dani told The Indian Express, “Orders have been issued to the Estate Department to conduct checking from Tuesday morning and remove egg and non-vegetarian street carts from the main roads. From tomorrow morning, these will be removed. Also, these are banned from within 100-metre range of religious places, gardens, public places, schools and colleges. “
Initially, the civic bodies of Vadodara and Rajkot, issued an order stating that non-vegetarian food sold on the street hurts the sentiments of the Hindu community. They added that the smoke emanating from these stalls is a health hazard.
Resistance from opposition
Rajkot mayor Pradip Dav launched a drive regarding the same on Tuesday. On Thursday, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation’s (VMC) standing committee chairman Hitendra Patel directed the civic body to remove all non-vegetarian food stalls from the road within 15 days. Leader of Opposition in the VMC, Ami Rawat, said, “No political party or government can decide who should eat what and where…”
As per officials, they have been imposing restrictions from areas where they have received a complaint. Mayor Pradip Dav said that they started the drive after receiving the complaint. As per the mayor, several people felt nausea due to the smell of non-vegetarian food while passing by these stalls. It was following these complaints that the authorities started taking action against the public sale of non-vegetarian food.