Bengaluru Civic Body to Evict Street Vendors After City Records 17 Cholera Cases

Bengaluru: While the Bengaluru civic body is busy tackling the potential spread of novel Coronavirus, another public health emergency— Cholera knocks the country's IT city as 17 cases have been reported in the past week.

"All of them are getting medication. It is sporadic. That is why it is scattered in different places of Bengaluru. The number of cases at this point is unusual because we haven't had Cholera cases in the last two years," said Vijayendra, Chief Health Officer, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). "We have written to the Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewage Board, sent water samples for testing and the results are awaited," he added.

Taking cognizance of burgeoning number of cases, the civic body decided to evict street food vendors to ensure the city’s cleanliness, BBMP Commissioner BH Anil Kumar tweeted on Monday. Meanwhile, BBMP Mayor Goutham Kumar stated that the civic body would also undertake door-to-door campaigns to ensure cleanliness.

City-based social activists condemned the Commissioner’s move of evicting the street vendors to deal with the outbreak. "We condemn this twitter announcement of BBMP Commissioner to evict street vendors to fight cholera. Do they even know the root causes of cholera? BWSSB and BBMP cannot even give proper UGD and water all over the city especially in slums where cholera outbreak happened and they want to evict street vendors instead ?" said Vinay K Sreenivasa, a lawyer-activist working with Bengaluru street vendors association.

"It is illegal and moral. Vendors are ready to join hands with BBMP to fight for hygiene, but they should not evict like this unilaterally," he added.