Ahmedabad has become the latest city in Gujarat to raise concerns regarding non-vegetarian items being sold on the streets. Stalls selling such items have been banned along public roads and in the 100-metre radius of schools, colleges and religious places, news agency ANI reported.
“The execution (of the order) will start tomorrow,” Devang Dani, chairman of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s town planning committee said.
Meanwhile, Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel said that the prohibition is not a “question of vegetarian and non-vegetarian” items. “People are free to eat whatever they want. But the food being sold at stalls should not be harmful and the stalls should not obstruct traffic flow,” he was quoted as saying by ANI. Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel has, however, said that the state government does not have an issue with people consuming non-vegetarian food.
However, action can be taken against street food carts that are selling “unhygienic” food or if they are obstructing traffic on city roads, Patel said.
Some people eat vegetarian food, some people eat non-vegetarian food, the BJP government does not have any problem with it. There have been demands to remove particular ‘larries’ (carts) from the road.
“Our only concern is that the food sold from food carts should not be unhygienic,” Patel said at a BJP programme at Bandhani village in Anand district.
The CM said local civic bodies take decisions on removing food carts if they hamper road traffic.
Local municipal corporations or municipalities take decisions to remove food carts. They can do so if they are obstructing traffic on city roads, he said.
The demand for removal of non-veg food carts from public places have also come from cities like Vadodara, Rajkot and Dwarka.
Ahmedabad 4th Gujarat city to say stay off main roads
ON A DAY the Town Planning and Estate Management Committee of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) decided to remove all carts and stalls selling non-vegetarian food from the main roads — becoming the fourth municipal corporation where such directives were issued — Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel said his government has no problem with what people ate.
“For over two days now, a debate has been going on about food carts… We have no issues with who eats vegetarian or non-vegetarian food but the food sold on these carts should not be harmful to health and if they obstruct traffic, the municipal corporation can remove them… But to raise issues about veg/non-veg… anyone can eat whatever they want, we have no objection to that,” said Patel, speaking at a BJP sneh milan event in Anand district on Monday.
Patel has been standing committee chairman of the AMC and is an MLA from Ahmedabad.
Earlier, political leaders of the municipal corporations of Rajkot, Vadodara and Bhavnagar had issued similar directives for the removal of non-vegetarian food carts from the main roads and had proceeded to remove them as part of their routine anti-encroachment drives, without waiting for their Standing Committee’s nod.
On Saturday, BJP president C R Paatil had told Yhe indian Experts that he had spoken to authorities in Vadodara and Rajkot Municipal Corporations and told them not to remove non-vegetarian food carts from the streets.
“The decision to remove these food carts was the personal opinion of leaders (in municipal corporations).
The state BJP has nothing to do with it.
We will not implement it across the state”.