Food mela: BBMP finally acts on RWA complaints

Stalls at the Fraser Town food mela have doubled since the pandemic, and traffic snarls and littering have become a huge problem

The BBMP on Tuesday said it had removed some unauthorised stalls at the ongoing Ramzan food mela in Fraser Town and given a warning to others to operate within the permitted area. The action comes in response to citizens’ complaints and an online petition.

Littering and traffic snarls had caused anguish among people living in Fraser Town, where the mela is held every year on the footpaths of MM Road, Mosque Road and adjoining lanes and bylanes.

Ramzan ends this weekend but the Fraser Town Residents’ Welfare Association (FTRWA) had written to the civic authorities to cut short the month-long food fair immediately. After a slow response, the BBMP health officer, executive engineer, solid waste management official and police conducted a drive on Tuesday evening. “We cleared about 18 unlicensed stalls that were encroaching footpaths,” Kiran, police inspector, Fraser Town, said.

According to the association, about 230 stalls had come up this year. “This could be double the pre-pandemic numbers,” says association member Saud Dastagir.

Regular visitors like 24-year-old Fathima (name changed) are appalled at the explosion of stalls. “Earlier, the mela was limited to just half the length of MM Road. Then it spilled over to the adjacent Mosque Road, then the bylanes. Except for the addition of kunafa and baklava in recent years, all stalls offer the same things!”

Vendors Metrolife spoke to claimed they had taken all necessary permissions. “For one stall, we pay at least Rs 50,000 to the traffic and BBMP authorities,” says Umar Musaddiq,
who opened an independent stall down MM Road after falling out with a hotel he was earlier associated with.

The mela doesn’t have a formal organising committee, and stalls come up arbitrarily, tying up with existing hotels or through ‘connections’. Vendors from Telangana and Kerala, and people from non-food professions have joined the bandwagon too. Ishaaq Ahmad makes about Rs 75,000 by selling pathar ka gosht under a tree at the Ramzan mela. What he earns in a season, over a month, is way more than what he earns by way of a monthly salary as an office boy, he says.

Ravindra P N, zonal commissioner (east), says the BBMP had given permission only to existing restaurants to set up stalls outside their establishments, and not to independent food vendors.

“Thousands of people are flocking to the mela daily. Roads leading up to the mosque are choked. So many stalls are occupying the footpaths. Where are the vendors getting the electricity from if they are not stealing from Bescom lines?” Saud questions why the authorities did not take action in the first place.

A businessman, Saud adds, "We don’t want to deprive the poor of their livelihood but the mela is becoming uncontrollable. It can’t take place in residential areas. Organise it in large areas like Palace Grounds or Corporation Grounds in a planned manner instead. We are ready to go further and file a PIL case to stop the mela in our area.”

Vendors admit the stalls have grown manifold this Ramzan but feel the problems are created by people thronging the mela in big numbers as the pandemic has receded and also because social media posts promote them.