Mumbai: Stakeholders split after first hawker body meet

The unions say the authorities don’t want to stop corruption. Pic/Nimesh Dave

The Town Vending Committee (TVC) of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will go ahead with the elections to select representatives for hawkers, despite their unions opposing the move to conduct elections among only 32,000 hawkers. The decision was passed by 10 votes, with seven against it, in a meeting conducted Wednesday. Meanwhile, hawker unions have decided to go against the decision.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was to hold a Town Vending Committee (TVC) representatives meeting on February 28 and March 21. However, they were both cancelled at the last minute and the meeting was finally held at 3 pm at the BMC headquarters yesterday, in the presence of 17 representatives, including BMC Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal.

The parliament passed the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood & Regulation of Street Vending) Act in 2014, following a Supreme Court (SC) order, and the TVC is an important part of it as it is responsible for the allotment of licences to hawkers, pitches and overall regulation in the city.

The last hawkers' survey was conducted in 2014. Pic/Anurag Ahire

Shashank Rao, President of the Mumbai Hawkers' Union, termed the meeting an eyewash. According to Rao, they are opposed to the BMC conducting elections among just 32,000 hawkers, which is merely 10 per cent of the estimated number of hawkers in the city. "How can they represent hawkers? The survey conducted in 2014 was faulty and there has to be a new survey every five years. We demanded that a new survey be held rather than holding an election. The commissioner asked for votes and all seven hawkers unions opposed it. But the decision was passed by 10 votes from those who were not hawker representatives. We will think about the steps to be taken," he said.

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According to Dayashankar Singh, President of Azad Hawkers Union, the BMC does not want the regularisation of hawkers and that's why they have come up with this farce. "The authorities don't want to stop corruption, including the collection of hafta from hawkers. We strongly opposed going ahead with the election with merely 32,000 hawkers selected by the BMC. How can the hawkers selected by the corporation represent actual hawkers?" he said, adding that they will approach the court if the BMC sticks to its decision.

Now, following the approval of the TVC, a list of 32,000 hawkers will be published in the public domain for suggestions and objections from hawkers and unions concerned. Once the list has been finalised, the labour commissioner will conduct the election. The newly elected TVC will then decide on the distribution of licences and regularisation.

"I voted for elections because that is the only step to go ahead with the regularisation of hawkers. But I also supported the hawker unions when they said that the BMC should recognise the list of 1.28 lakh hawkers to whom they disbursed loans of R10,000 under the PM SVANidhi scheme. I will put my point under suggestions/objections," said Vidya Vaidya, a representative of citizens in the TVC.

Vaidya said she even pointed out that the state must come up with a proper hawkers' policy and that every city should decide the number of hawkers based on the holding capacity of the city. "Otherwise, in a city like Mumbai, 2 per cent of the population will be a huge number and there will be no space to walk on the roads," she said.

In India, the National Policy for Urban Street Hawkers notes that street hawkers constitute approximately 2 per cent of the population of a metropolis.

Rajan Shetty, a representative of AHAR (Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association) said the regularisation of hawkers is a long process and if the elections are not held, the whole process will be pushed to
the back burner. "So we voted for the election but the hawkers have their own side and they were saying that merely 32,000 hawkers won't be a fair representation," said Shetty.

There are around 14,970 hawkers who received licences in the 1970s. When the BMC started a survey in 2016, they had identified and distributed forms to 1.28 lakh hawkers, of which 99,435 submitted applications with relevant documents. As the state government had made domicile certificates mandatory, only 15,361 hawkers were found eligible in 2019. Now, after the relaxation in the rule of domicile, the BMC added another 2,000 to the list.

32k
No of hawkers to vote

2%
Ratio of hawkers to population