Hawking zones to get delayed as Mumbai civic body yet to form zonal panels

The central committee has met only once since being formed in December

Past its May 15 deadline to form seven zonal town vending committees (TVC), the civic body has set up only four so far. This will in turn delay the entire hawking policy under which the number of hawkers and hawking zones will be decided and demarcated in the city.

BMC is still waiting for all the TVC to form (HT Photo)

Apart from the central TVC, the 20-member zonal committees will handle hawkers’ registration, issuing of licences and demarcating vending/non-vending and restricted zones for hawking. The panel will also work as a redress committee for both hawkers and citizens. Despite advertising applications for interested citizens thrice since December, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has been unable to fill the vacant seats on the 20-member zonal TVCs.

The central committee has met only once since being formed in December and it will not meet again until all zonal TVCs have been set up and hawking zones finalised. Only TVCs in South Mumbai and Western suburbs have been formed.

“Each zonal committee will have 12 officials and representatives from hawkers unions, and eight NGO and citizen representatives. No one from market association is interested as we have not received almost no applications from them. The remaining three committees should be set up in another 15 days,” said deputy municipal commissioner Nidhi Chaudhari.

Once the seven zonal TVCs approve the list of vending zones, the list will be forwarded to the 20-member TVC for final approval. Moreover, the BMCs zonal committees will work for better coordination.

After scrutinising 99,437 hawker registration forms, BMC has found only 23,265 eligible hawkers in the city. They make up a draft list and the remaining hawkers have less than 30 days to submit necessary documents, which mainly includes a domicile certificate, said Chaudhari.