Feudalism thriving on the footpath

It seems that democracy is now functioning well in the footpath in the cities across the country but feudalism is flourishing, with the local governments promoting the latter. You are allowed to park motorbike or even a car on the footpath or at the roadside but you can't sell drinking water and packaged food items to the pedestrians at the same place. 

The people from the lower class who manage their hands to mouth from selling items at the roadside or on the footpath experience harassment from the municipality police while at the same time an expensive SUV parked half on the footpath nearby goes unnoticed.

It’s not that people should be allowed to spread their shops in the footpath. The roads in the Kathmandu Valley have very narrow, or no, footpaths, and selling goods there has created nuisance in the part of the pedestrians. 

But, why should the cars or motorbikes, and taxies on many occasions, go unnoticed by the authorities? Is it just because they turn blind eyes to the mistakes of the ‘rich’ people? Or they don’t have enough human resource or technology to punish them? 

The metropolises in the valley should have enough car lifters and CCTV cameras should be used to punish those who disturb the traffic flow with haphazard parking.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 22 August 2018.