Street vendors, all members of the Salem Nagara Saalai Oora Siru Viyabarigal Sangam, affiliated to the AITUC, staged a demonstration in front of the Collectorate here on Monday demanding the State Government to implement the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 2014 and protect them.
V. Rajendran, secretary of the Sangam, led the agitation, which was inaugurated by M. Munusamy, general secretary of the district unit of the AITUC.
The vendors said that the Act protected the interest of the street vendors. The Act suggested formation of Town Vending Committee in the Corporations, municipalities, town panchayats and other local bodies with 40 per cent representation for the street vendors in such committees.
The Act suggested that the committee should be entrusted with the work of taking survey of street vendors and distributing photo affixed identity cards to them. It also favoured that till the distribution of identity cards, no street vendor should be disturbed.
The police and the local authorities should provide full protection to them and their trade.
They demanded that the State Government should come forward to create rules for the implementation of this Act. The Government had already given an assurance to the Madras High Court in this regard. Till it fulfilled the assurance and provided identity cards to the street vendors, the officials should not disturb them and file false cases against them, they said.
