On a teeming street corner in Chandni Chowk market, in Delhi, Dipankar Das deftly flips a paratha on to a metal plate and piles it high with steaming vegetable curry.

Next to him, another street vendor stirs a giant pan of succulent jalebi — bright orange, pretzel-shaped morsels of batter soaked in syrup.

For thousands of years, food stalls such as these have been an integral part of life in Delhi, serving hot, nutritious, cheap snacks that many consider to be the only authentic Indian cuisine.

Mr Das says that his family has been running a stall here for more than 100 years. But the Government wants to shut down the 300,000 informal roadside food stalls in Delhi in a drive to modernise the capital — and combat “Delhi belly” — before hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2010.

In February the Supreme Court banned cooking at street stalls in Delhi and ordered hawkers to sell only cold, packaged dishes prepared at home. The ruling could be mirrored in other Indian cities.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), which is responsible for sanitation, is expected to start closing down illegal stalls after a final court hearing on its action plan on April 17. City officials say that the idea is to rid Delhi of unsanitary stalls that help to spread diarrhoea, typhoid and hepatitis A by leaving food out in the open and washing plates and mugs in dirty water.

“It’s wrong to say that this will put an end to street food culture. A lot of street food is sold in shops which are properly regulated,” Sanjiv Sen, a lawyer for the MCD, told The Times. “But you cannot just start cooking on the street — it is unhygienic and unsafe.”

Municipal officials also blame illegal stalls for clogging Delhi’s streets, where traffic jams are often caused by cars, rickshaws or lorries pulling over for a quick bite or a cup of masala tea. Food stalls, they say, will not shut down completely, but will move into at least 100 “food courts” — as they were in Singapore in the 1980s — where they can be properly regulated and pay tax.

Street vendors say that that will ruin their business, by making them charge similar prices to restaurants — assuming, of course, that the Government gets round to building the food courts. And many Delhi residents are outraged by the proposal, which they say will rob them of the cheapest and tastiest food in the capital.

“Where else can you get fresh stuff like this,” said Naveen Khurana, a 28-year-old electronics store manager, as he ate a pani puri, a hollow dough ball stuffed with spicy potatoes and chutney.

“I eat here very day and I’ve never been sick. Take away this and you destroy a piece of India.” He said that he preferred street stalls to the often overpriced restaurants and pro-liferating Western fast-food outlets in Delhi, such as Mc-Donald’s and KFC. Veejay Chauham, a taxi driver, said: “Here I can eat all I want for ten rupees. These judges want a modern city, but they should not forget about us.”

The court’s ruling is the latest in a series of controversial moves to modernise Delhi. In 1998, the court ordered all public transport in Delhi to switch to compressed natural gas in an attempt to clean up the city’s choking air pollution. Last year it ordered the city government to close down tens of thousands of illegal businesses that had opened in residential neighbourhoods.

Today’s menu

Paratha with pickle 5 rupees (6p)

Chhole bhature (fried puffed chapati) 15 rupees

Pani puri (dough balls stuffed with potato) 2 rupees each

Kulfi (frozen milk with almonds and saffron) 10 rupees

Jalebi (deep-fried batter in syrup) 10 rupees for 100 grammes

Tikki (deep-fried potato patty) 5 rupees for two

Masala tea 4 rupees a cup

Source: Times research

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