BMC proposes deploying its own staff at railway stations to drive hawkers away

BMC reviews hawker policy to include 77,000 vendors and reassess hawking zones, while planning enforcement near railway stations amid ongoing infrastructure projects.

MUMBAI: Following the Bombay high court hearing on February 7, the BMC is currently reviewing its hawker policy to include 77,000 hawkers, up from the previously eligible 32,415. In addition, the civic body plans to reassess 222 roads that were designated as hawking zones in 2017 by the Supreme Court, as they now interfere with ongoing infrastructure projects like the metro rail and road works.

BMC proposes deploying its own staff at railway stations to drive hawkers away

The BMC also intends to deploy its own enforcement teams to remove hawkers within a 150-meter radius of all railway stations. “We will propose through our legal counsel to deploy station-wise staff from the license and encroachment removal department,” said a senior civic official from the BMC’s licence department. “That’s one solution to get rid of hawkers. We are in the process of gathering data on the number of railway station premises encroached on. We will increase staff to monitor and also prescribe time limits for hawkers to sell their wares.”

Talking about the roads that were designated as hawking spaces in the earlier policy of 2017, the civic official told HT, “There have been a lot of changes subsequently with the metro and road works. We will have to relook at which roads can now be declared hawking zones. In all probability, the number will reduce.”

When asked how the BMC intended to accommodate 77,000 hawkers on the roads, the official said, “Only if our criterion of a domicile certificate is fulfilled will they get a certificate from BMC and be legalised. The fines collected prior to 2014 are also proof of their legality. We will submit to the court the letters where 77,000 people had not submitted the necessary proofs.”

The Bombay HC last Friday asked the BMC to explain the decline in eligible hawkers and why only 32,000 hawkers were eligible out of 99,000. The BMC had replied that hawkers who did not meet the eligibility criteria had been excluded from the list.

There are four eligibility criteria: possessing a domicile certificate, being above the age of 14 years, not having another business source and, lastly, holding Indian citizenship. The vendors who did not meet all the requirements were disqualified from the list, the civic body said. In the last hearing, the HC bench had agreed that all vendors must have domicile certificates.

The bench highlighted the persisting issue of illegal hawkers setting up their stalls at several places in the city despite many court orders calling for their dismissal. The next hearing has been listed for February 24, and the bench reiterated that the previous order on curbing illegal hawkers across the city would prevail until then.