Street vendors’ policy hangs fire, civic bodies and state pass buck

NEW DELHI: For the past two years, rehabilitation of street vendors in Delhi has been hanging fire. And almost three months after the AAP-led Delhi government notified the policy of Street Vendors’ Act, the BJP-led corporations and the state are busy passing the buck on its implementation.
While the corporations claim that the state is responsible for forming the Town Vending Committees (TVC), government officials said they can be formed only when the civic bodies and SDMs send the list of nominees of members.
As per the Act, the municipal corporations are supposed to form TVCs, which will oversee the implementation of the policy and resolve vendor-related disputes. But civic officials said that the government has decided to set up the first set of TVCs.
“In 2012, we had formed the TVC following court orders. Now, we have been told that Delhi government will form them. We are waiting for the government to complete the process to carry out the survey of street vendors and start the rehabilitation process,” said Yogender Chandolia, leader of the House, North Corporation.
Vendors’ associations claim they are being harassed by police and municipal officials due to delay in the formation of TVCs. “We have been waiting for a long time. We have written to the government, but received no response,” said Arbind Singh, national coordinator, National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI).
Explaining the reason for the delay, Delhi government officials said the process to identify people to be nominated as members of TVCs is still on. The government plans to constitute 70 TVCs, one per assembly constituency, with 30 members each. “We have to identify 2,100 people to be nominated to the TVCs. Of this, 40% have to be vendors. We have written to the corporations and SDMs to send us the names. The process will take some time,” said a senior government official.
A group of prominent market associations of Delhi recently approached the high court challenging the validiity of the Street Vendors’ Act, 2014.
“The Act mandates that 40% members of the TVC will be vendors and 10% from NGOs. TVC is an important body as it will decide the vending site, resolve disputes, identify vendors, etc. When 50% of the people will vendors and NGOs members, how will the government ensure that our problems are addressed?” said Pramod Sharma, president of Sarojini Nagar Market Association, which is planning to approach the court along with five other market bodies.
Traders are also opposing the government proposal to carry out a survey of all existing vendors at a particular site. “How will they include new vendors for rehabilitation? Only those with a valid tehbazari licence should be included in the rehabilitation policy,” said Sanjay Bhargava, general secretary of Chandni Chowk Sarv Vyapar Mandal.