Hawkers’ union meets BMC chief regarding Street Vendors Act rollout

Mumbai: A delegation of the Janwadi Hawkers Sabha, a hawkers’ union, met with Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner Bhushan Gagrani on Monday to discuss the process for implementing the Street Vendors Act, 2014.
While the hawker elections for the town vending committee (TVC), a body of hawkers’ representatives, civil society and officials who will roll out the Act, were held on August 29, its results have not yet been announced owing to a stay order by the Supreme Court. Hawker unions had approached the Supreme Court stating that the 32,415 hawkers eligible to vote in the elections were selected after an allegedly sham survey conducted by BMC in 2014.
The BMC’s licence department, meanwhile, is busy preparing for the rollout of the Act. The implementation of the Act needs a framework, for which the state government needs to form a scheme, and the BMC needs to frame byelaws, which will provide additional rules on the hawker policy as per a Bombay High Court order stipulating a deadline of September 30. The scheme, however, cannot be passed without the TVC’s consultation.
“We suggested that a meeting of the provisional TVC be called to draft the scheme, as it cannot be passed without the TVC. And without the scheme, the Act’s implementation will once again be left hanging,” said Ravindra Madane, general secretary of the Janwadi Hawkers Sabha. “The officials told us they will consider it.
Madane hinted that the union had prepared a draft scheme they plan to submit to the BMC in the next TVC meeting. “We had submitted the scheme to the MVA (Maha Vikas Aghadi) government in 2022, but the [Mahayuti] government after that has not acted on the Act at all. We will reintroduce it,” he said.
An official from the BMC’s licence department, however, said that the old provisional TVCs have been disbanded, and they cannot approve of the scheme. “The scheme and bylaws of the Act have to be made in consultation with the TVC, but it has to be the proper TVC with the elected hawkers’ representatives. Till the new ones are formed, we can do nothing. But we will prepare a draft of the scheme by September 30, as per the high court’s orders,” the official said.
The Janwadi Hawkers Sabha’s other demand was that action against hawkers be ceased as the Act has not yet been implemented, which means there is no distinction between legal and illegal hawkers. “How will the hawkers who have been certified by the BMC and given loans under the PM SVANidhi (Prime Minister Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi) scheme pay off their loans if they can’t do their business?” he asked. PM SVANidhi is the central government’s micro-credit scheme for street vendors.
The BMC official said he could not comment on this.