MUMBAI: The fate of the city’s hawkers is set to be sealed this week. The BMC, based on the objections and suggestions received from hawkers’ unions and civil society, will give a final decision on how many among them will get licenses to operate.
According to the BMC’s published list released on July 17, there are only 32,000 verified street vendors. This list was finalised after the civic body’s town vending committee under the chairmanship of civic chief I S Chahal held a meeting on May 3 attended by civic officials, hawkers’ unions and members of civil society. Following the release of the list, the BMC had asked all stakeholders to submit their objections and suggestions.
Upset by the low number, hawkers’ unions have demanded a fresh survey to include more hawkers. NGOs like NAGAR representing pedestrians disagree on conducting a new survey though they agree that the BMC’s verified number of 32,000 hawkers is low. The eight unions—Maharashtra Ekta Hawkers’ Union, Mumbai Hawkers’ Union, Azad Hawkers’ Union, Jai Hindustan Hawkers’ Union, Ekta Hawkers’ Union, AITUC Hawkers’ union and two others—have given a written representation for a re-survey, in the absence of which, they aver, it remains a mock exercise, benefitting neither the city nor hawkers.
According to Shashank Rao, president of the Mumbai Hawkers’ Union, the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 states that 2.5 percent of the population can be accommodated as legal hawkers. “That would be approximately 300,000-plus hawkers,” he said. “But they are legalising only 32,000 hawkers, which is inclusive of the earlier legal 10,000 hawkers. So in reality, only 22,000 hawkers will get new licenses.”
Rao claimed the BMC’s decision was “bogus, fooling both the public and hawkers”. “The BMC has no real intention of legalising more hawkers, as this move will stop their system of collecting ‘haftas’,” he alleged. “But it needs to pay attention to the objective of the Act—to regularise more hawkers—otherwise it will not resolve the issue of illegal hawkers spilling onto roads and pavements.”
Vidya Vaidya of NAGAR, who is also a part of the town vending committee, said there was a period for suggestions and objections, where the hawkers could have put in their claims. “Their whole idea is just to increase the numbers,” she said.
When asked about the unions’ contention that 2.5 percent of the population should be accommodated as hawkers as per the Act, Vaidya said, “For a city like Mumbai, 2.5 percent of the population is not the correct figure. The 2.5 percent applied to cities like Delhi or Pune cannot be applied to Mumbai. We have long ago put in a suggestion to take into consideration the holding capacity of the city as against what pedestrians need. The holding capacity of the footpath may be 20 hawkers but if the 20 hawkers do not leave any space for pedestrians to walk, then it makes no sense.”
Vaidya cited the example of Hill Road in Bandra West where footpaths, roads and society premises have been completely taken over by hawkers. “The wide road looks miniscule because of this,” she said. “It is a place where accidents are waiting to happen, where people are spilling out and BEST buses are not able to ply. So the holding capacity of a city and taking care of pedestrians’ needs in every city is a must.”
Vaidya, however, agreed with the hawker unions on one point: that 32,000 legal hawkers was too low. “It’s not a realistic number,” she said. “But the actual number is for the BMC to ascertain in coordination with BEST. The BMC had promised that it would take all suggestions and objections from hawkers and correct the list wherever it was wrong. I don’t know the present status of that correction and exercise. The Labour Commission was supposed to do all this.”
Rao said that the BMC needed to junk the existing town vending committee and form a new “expert panel” with IAS officials, town planners, hawkers’ unions, legal experts and citizens’ representatives to arrive at a final decision. Vaidya objected to this. “A survey again just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “What other new parameters are going to be put in place?”
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