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| Supreme Court against makeshift stalls | | Most of them have to go this week | |
BL KAK
NEW DELHI, Apr 2: Indian food street lovers could be tasting their last bite, with the Supreme Court saying that most of makeshift stalls have to go. Thousands of makeshift stalls dot sprawling capital, Delhi. According to city authorities, removal of most of these stalls may happen during the current week.
This will be part of new hawking and squatting laws that aim to close stalls deemed to be breeding grounds for everything from diarrhoea to typhoid. Auto rickshaw and truck drivers swear by deep-fried samosas, kebabs, spiced vegetables and hot breads sold by thousands of makeshift stalls that dot India’s sprawling capital.
The Supreme Court has triggered moments of restlessness among owners of the most of these stalls. The apex court is against the continuance of most of the stalls. “I have heard of this”, said Eashwar Das, 18, as he quickly rolled out a mixture of dough and boiled potato for a popular variety of fried bread—served sometimes with yoghurt or pickles—on a table that also supported a kerosene stove.
Das is among an estimated 300,000 hawkers whose outdoor kitchens could be targeted by the authorities in the city of 14 million, and he says the stakes could not be higher. “I hope the municipal authorities will not forcibly close us down. My family back home depends on me sending money”, he said as he and his younger brother quickly served the breads accompanied by spiced lentils to customers by the side of a busy, dusty south New Delhi street.
But the city is on a major push to clean up ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games. A New Delhi municipal official said that the court ruling was aimed at ensuring food is not served in “unhygienic conditions,” noting that street food almost invariably leads to problems commonly referred to as “Delhi belly”. “We are also hoping to cut transmission of diseases such as typhoid fever and hepatitis A, and help push customers into formal restaurants that pay taxes and offer more sanitary conditions”, said the official.
At street stalls, he said, “the food is often cooked and kept in the open for hours with flies all over it, dust blown onto it from passing cars, buses. That is what most people are ingesting though they don’t know it”. Still, in a country where almost one third of a population of a billion earn less than a dollar a day, the street stalls of Delhi are a beacon of nourishment for as little as Rs 10 a plate.
Even tourist guidebooks cite street food stalls as offering a ”unique and authentic Indian culinary experience” that upmarket restaurants and hotels lack. The variety can be amazing. There is spiced tea, flat deep-fried breads—parathas—stuffed with potato, eggs, vegetable or meat; side dishes of curried pickles, tender mutton kebabs; and a delicately-fried dough ball filled with spiced water called a golgappa.
But many of the stalls compete with restaurants and are illegally located at bus stops and busy intersections that lead to traffic snarls as motorists pull over for a quick bite.
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