Mumbai: Hawkers will a part of Town Vending Committee

Mumbai: The representatives from the hawkers' community will soon be part of the Town Vending Committee (TVC). But since the elected corporators will also be appointed as members of the committee, the implementation of the hawker's policy will be delayed till civic elections.

The TVC has the authority to implement the hawker's policy. It is headed by the civic chief and also has representatives from various departments of BMC along with the police department, members of the hawker association and civic society. The BMC passed a resolution in its general body meeting in 2018 to include corporators too in the committee. The State Government has also approved including corporators in both city and zonal-level TVCs.

“The BMC has started the process of electing representatives from the hawker's committee. But it will have to wait till the civic election for selecting the elected corporators to be part of the TVC. Then a scheme will be framed for marking hawking zones,” said the civic official. The delay in the implementation of the hawkers' policy has led to conflict between traders and hawkers at many places in the city.

The BMC started working on the hawkers' policy after the Parliament passed the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act in 2014, which was followed by a Supreme Court order. In 2016, the BMC started the process of issuing licenses to hawkers. Thereafter, the BMC had conducted a survey of 1,28,444 hawkers. A total of 99,435 submitted their application with relevant documents. But only 15,361 hawkers were found eligible since the state government had made domicile certificates mandatory for them. The civic body has also identified 30,832 pitches on the 404 roads for hawkers.

Street Vendors Act passed by Parliament: 2014

Hawkers surveyed: 1,28,444

Application submitted: 99,435

No of eligible hawkers published in first list in 2019: 15,631