Mumbai: Eight years later, Hawkers Policy to see light of the day

Mumbai: The Hawkers Policy which was in cold storage for the last eight years, will now see the light of the day. The BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation is planning to publish within a week a list of hawkers' representatives in the Town Vending Committee (TVC) which will include corporators as well. The committee will play an important role in drawing up Hawkers’ Policy.

After getting suggestions and objections from citizens, the BMC will submit its list to the Labour Commissioner to conduct elections to select hawkers’ representatives who will later participate in drafting the policy along with the state government. The process will be completed within 15 days, a senior BMC officer said.

In 2014, after the Supreme Court order, the BMC had conducted a survey of hawkers in Mumbai where 99,000 applications had been filed. However, many applications were rejected because the applicants had failed to submit domicile certificates and other relevant documents. Besides, many applications had not even been filled up properly.

The BMC had then selected 15,000 hawkers as eligible for the policy. Later, after discussion with corporators, the civic body had selected 30,000 locations for the hawkers.

There will be 8 representatives in the committee for which many candidates have approached the BMC.

Now, BMC has made a list of these representatives and will upload on its website for the suggestions and objections. Later, it will be submitted to the labor commissioner.

A senior officer said that after the constitution of the committee, the State government will make a comprehensive policy. Once the policy gets approved, the BMC will implement it in Mumbai, but it will take time.