Govt has to make law for street vendors: study

Stating that the central government needs to come up with a law on street vending regulations, a team from Yale Law School, Connecticut, USA, released a paper on developing national street vendor legislation in India on Tuesday. HT reports.

Stating that the central government needs to come up with a law on street vending regulations, a team from Yale Law School, Connecticut, USA, released a paper on developing national street vendor legislation in India on Tuesday.

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The paper includes a comparative study of vendor laws from 21 countries and 33 cities including Philippines, Brazil and Singapore.

The paper was presented at a conference where NGOs, National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) and Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) were also present.

The study showed that in many cities, restricting street vending activities where there is a demand actually increases illegal vending in that area.

"Examples from many cities in Ghana, Trinidad and in Mexico City show that if street vending is banned in markets that are popular among street vendors, it leads to an increase in the number of illegal hawkers in the area. Moving street vendors to far flung areas does not help as vendors do not get business there," said Megan Carrarino, a team member from Yale Law School.

"According to our study, the world is looking to India for taking a lead in this case," said Muneer Ahmad, also part of the Yale Law School team.

The team and the organisations present also pointed out that Supreme Court,in October last year, had said in a ruling that the right to carry on hawking was a fundamental right.

"Since the ruling mentions it is a fundamental right, a national legislation is logical. A law to protect vendors from arbitrary harassment is needed at the national level as this problem is not restricted to any particular state," said Arvind Singh, national coordinator, NASVI.

Legal experts also pointed out that the current Model Street Vendors Bill 2009 lacks in many key areas.