By Dilanthi Jayamanne
Colombo Mayor, Omar Kamil expressed his concern yesterday for the shop owners who lost their businesses owing to the demolition of unauthorised structures in the Colombo area. "Some of them have been staying in these buildings for over 30 to 40 years and it has been the only life they have known."

"We agree that the city should be made beautiful but not at the expense of the city dwellers," he said. Some of them are the tax and rate payers of the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC).

The CMC has always endeavoured to supply pavement hawkers with alternatives when evacuating them from their places of business. For instance the CMC provided pavement hawkers with mobile carts which could be taken away at the end of a days business.

"In a survey carried out by the University of Colombo the CMC discovered that there were over 3,000 pavement hawkers," Mayor Kamil said. "As a solution to clear the pavements we supplied them with around 2,800 mobile carts to carry out their businesses". He said that they would be receiving another instalment of mobile carts from the CMC in the near future.

The CMC will conduct a survey to figure out the number of shop owners and dwellers of the Colombo city who lost their businesses owing to the demolition of unauthorised structures carried out by the Urban Development Authority (UDA). The Mayor pledged to provide them with an alternative following the survey so that they could resume their businesses before the end of this year.