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BMC lists 32K legit hawkers in city; unions demand fresh survey
TVC has the authority to implement the hawker’s policy. It is headed by the civic chief Iqbal Singh Chahal and has representatives from various departments of BMC, MMRDA, traffic, police, members of the hawker association and civil society
Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) town vending committee (TVC) on Wednesday approved a list of 32,000 hawkers who can carry out their trade. This, members of hawkers’ unions feel, will deprive over a lakh of their livelihood. Eight unions have demanded a fresh survey be conducted and those left out in the cold be allowed to participate in the TVC elections, failing which they will move court.
TVC has the authority to implement the hawker’s policy. It is headed by the civic chief Iqbal Singh Chahal and has representatives from various departments of BMC, MMRDA, traffic, police, members of the hawker association and civil society.
Shashank Rao, president, Mumbai Hawkers’ Union encapsulated the street vendors’ voice – that the survey be done according to The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 in which BMC had received more than one lakh application. (See box)
“This is unfair as there are over 2.5lakh hawkers in the city and the act says 2.5percent of the population can be accommodated. Mumbai’s population is 1.4crore,” said Rao. “Over 80 per cent have been ignored. What will happen to their livelihood?”
The unions --- Maharashtra Ekta Hawkers’ Union, Mumbai Hawkers’ Union, Azad Hawkers’ Union, Jai Hindustan Hawkers’ Union and four others have given a written representation for a re-survey, failing which it will be termed a mock exercise, benefitting neither the city nor hawkers.
Rao called attention to the objective of the act – to regularise hawkers. In the absence of that, money is “spent by way of haftas to the officials”. “They do not want to stop this because they have no other job. There is a major hitch there,” he added.
Nawaz Khan, president, Maharashtra Ekta Hawkers’ Union said the act was formulated in 2014 after eight unions pooled in their energies and moved Supreme Court. “The TVC was formed in 2013 and the act formed the next year. The committee was authorised to conduct a survey on hawkers. Today we have a 20-member committee with eight members from hawkers’ union. Blaming the pandemic, Chahal conducted the meeting for the first time on Wednesday.” Khan added BMC charged ₹100 for each form distributed to 1.28 lakh hawkers for the survey, seeking their personal details.
The civic body started working on the hawkers’ policy after the Parliament passed the act in 2014. In 2016, the BMC started issuing licences to hawkers, following which a survey of 1,28,444 hawkers was carried out; 99,435 submitted their applications of which only 15,361 hawkers were found eligible in 2019 since the state government had made domicile certificates mandatory for them.
The backstory
The Street Vendors (Protection of livelihood and regulation of street vending) Act, 2014, mandates that the town vending committee (TVC) survey and give licence to those in the business of hawking.
In 2014, a survey was conducted to ascertain the number of hawkers in business within the limits of BMC. Many hawkers who have been carrying on their trade for years were not included in the survey – their applications were not accepted.
On the other hand, applications of many who were not related to the trade were accepted.
Nine years have gone by since the first survey. TVC is expected to conduct a survey of hawkers every five years.