Chandigarh to have 16,500 vending zones

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh,  August 6  

The Architecture  Department has  approved 16,500 vending zones for the city, except Sectors 1 to 6. It has asked the Municipal  Corporation to  start implementing the policy.

 Besides, the Administration has constituted a high-level committee under the chairmanship of Home Secretary Anurag  Agarwal to take a call on no-vending  zones in Sectors 17, 22  and 19. The  other  members  of the committee  include the Municipal Commissioner  MC and  the Chief  Architect. 

Sources said the Administration had conveyed its decision to the Municipal  Corporation. 

The finalisation of the vending  zones was done after a joint survey by a team of architects and  civic officials following the directions of the Administrator.   

 The  Municipal Corporation had earlier rejected the vending-zone plan prepared by the Department of Architecture saying it was not prepared as per the provisions of the Act. Councillors had  also opposed it during Chief Architect Kapil Setia’s presentation last month. 

They had demanded that the vendors should be permitted at Sukhna Lake and Rock Garden as those were major tourist attractions. The councillors also demanded to see if Sectors 22 and 19 could be declared as no vending zones. Under the approved  plan, as many as 2,500  mobile street vendors will be permitted and 2,505 will be allowed to operate from their original sites, provided they do not flout vending norms.

The vending zones include Sectors 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 23, 36, 38, 46 and 54 and most southern areas. The  MC  has fixed the monthly fee and penalty for street vendors. Vendors, who keep shifting, will have to pay a monthly vending fee between Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 while those operating from one place will pay anything between Rs 300 and Rs 2,000, depending on the area they are sitting on.

Vendors everywhere 

Since the Municipal Corporation has stopped issuing challans to vendors, it has lost crores of rupees. This has also led to a rise in encroachments. The survey was completed in September last year  and a few challans have been issued since then. Vendors continue to throng Sectors 15, 17, 18, 19 and 22. Parking areas and vacant spaces in these markets are full of encroachments where vendors sell a variety of products, leaving a little space for people to walk. Ashwini  Kumar, a  trader, Sector 22,  said illegal vendors  had affected their business.