Now, provisional licences for street vendors soon

Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 26

While the UT Administration is yet to approve proposal of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation for vending zones in the city, the civic body has decided to issue provisional licences instead of permanent licences to street vendors till the time the final approval comes from the UT Administration.

An agenda in this regard is coming up for discussion in the MC House meeting scheduled to be held on April 28.

After the approval of the UT Administration, the Municipal Corporation will start issuing permanent licences to vendors. In the first phase, permanent licences will be issued to the vendors of Ward No. 1 (Sectors 1 to 11). The vending plan of Ward No. 1 will be issued shortly by the UT Chief Architect.

The street vendors’ survey was conducted by the Haryana Nav Yuvak Kala Sangam under the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act - 2014. The agency had identified 21,621 vendors during the survey.

Recently, MC Commissioner B Purushartha had ordered re-verification of the survey. In the re-verification, the MC staff had found several vendors ‘missing’.

The Town Vending Committee (TVC) of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation has already decided that vendors cannot operate from parking lots of the city.

The TVC, which was formed by the Municipal Corporation under the Street Vendors Act, had decided that the parking lots will be used only for the purpose of parking of vehicles.