Project delayed as MC finds it hard to earmark sites for street vendors

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, June 24

The much-awaited street vending project is getting delayed. Noida-based REPL Consultant Company, hired by the Municipal Corporation, to conduct a survey for the project, has completed its work for phase I.

The company has submitted its report stating that there are 3,119 street vendors in the city.

The MCB is now facing problems in finding sites for the project as there is no free space available in the city. The MCB had allotted space to a vendor on the footpath on both sides of the Mall road, but this has created aresentment among shopkeepers on the Mall road. A delegation of the shopkeepers has also met the Mayor and the Municipal Commissioner. They have demand that the footpath should not be marked for street vendors there and some other point should be selected.

Though the company has selected a few sites for the scheme, the plan to create a market there has been confined only to paper for the past few months. The firm has submitted a ward-wise list in which Ward No. 19 has the maximum of 468 street vendors. Ward Number 32 with 404 street vendors comes next. Ward Nos. 11, 13, 22, 24 and 41 do not have any street vendors. As per the report, there are 554 street vendors or food stalls in the city.

There are 1,093 street vendors of fruits and vegetables. As many as 880 street vendors are cloth sellers. Around 45 are the ones who sell shoes. There are 93 paan and cigarette vendors. Thirty vendors sell handmade products while there are 439 other street vendors in the city.

In the first phase, the MCB has issued licences and IDs to the street vendors so that they can move freely in their areas.

The MC has started work to allot sites to the vendors following the order of the SC under the Street Vendor Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vendors Act, 2014. Under the scheme, the roadside vendors will be given identity cards and space. Nobody will issue challans to them for encroaching upon the land. They will also be able get benefits of government schemes.

After the implementation of the scheme, the traffic problem is likely to be addressed to some extent as a large number of street vendors are seen on footpaths and along the main roads. The roads that are hit due to encroachments by vendors are Ajit Road, Mall Road, Power House road and railway station road, among others. At many places, street vendors have encroached upon parking areas.