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Chandigarh MC removes 77 illegal street vendors on Day 1 of drive
Besides seizing their goods permanently, the enforcement staff imposed a fine of ₹10,000 on each of the vendor.
On first day of the enforcement drive, municipal corporation teams removed 77 unregistered street vendors from different parts of the city, including Sectors 17, 19 and 22 that witness the highest footfall of shoppers.
Besides seizing their goods permanently, the enforcement staff imposed a fine of ₹10,000 on each of the vendor. The action comes four days after the Punjab and Haryana high court directed the Chandigarh authorities to remove illegal vendors within one month. The city has 9,300 registered vendors and considers all the remaining ones illegal.
According to the MC commissioner’s orders, it is mandatory for all teams to deposit the seized articles at the civic body’s store in the Industrial Area daily.
During the drive, MC teams even took identity cards of the vendors. As reported last week, none of the 1,800 unregistered vendors challaned this year turned up to pay the fine, turning the drives into a futile exercise. As the MC did not have their valid addresses, it made it impossible to recover the fine.
The MC commissioner has directed the 12 teams tasked with removing illegal vendors to confiscate the identity cards of defaulters to ensure the fine can be recovered from them.
“The enforcement teams will mainly focus on finding and removing unregistered vendors and encroachers while ensuring that all registered ones comply with the street vending bylaws,” said MC commissioner KK Yadav.
Yadav said people have been complaining about encroachments by vendors on municipal land, especially during late evening hours. “Therefore, teams have been directed to conduct special anti-encroachment drives at that time,” he said.
