Bangladesh, July 4 -- The government's promise to reclaim Dhaka's footpaths is already beginning to unravel.

Weeks after unveiling an ambitious strategy to replace repeated eviction drives with registration, rehabilitation and designated markets, hawkers have reclaimed many of the capital's busiest pavements, while several of the spaces allocated for them remain largely unused.

Along Erashad Road beside Baitul Mokarram National Mosque, where the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) designated space for hawkers, buses now occupy much of the area.

Elsewhere, homeless people have settled in makeshift shelters and piles of rubbish have accumulated.

Just metres away, however, hawkers have returned to the surrounding footpaths.

In some pla...