Bansal blames MC for chaos due to vendors

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 13

Former Union Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal claimed that the MC was responsible for the mess and chaos prevailing in the city due to street vendors.

In a statement, Bansal said the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act was enacted to protect informal-sector hawkers, who sell their wares from stationary places (pharis) or on peripatetic rehris by regulating vending zones.

The MC, Bansal said, handed over the survey of vendors to a private organisation, which had no experience in the field and allegedly had links with the BJP. This led to a flood of people rushing to the city to get their names included in the survey.

In the process, Bansal alleged that the list of vendors was inflated to over 20,000 while not more than 8,000 vendors actually worked in the city.

Whether the applicant was a resident of the city or not could have easily been verified on the basis of the Aadhaar number. “This was not done. Also, it has come to notice that there are instances where one licence slip is photocopied in colour and used at different places by charging arbitrage from other vendors,” alleged Bansal.

“The MC deliberately did not issue registration numbers to individuals nor made it mandatory to display the same prominently on a placard at the place of work. Vending zones were not demarcated before issuing licences,” he said. Bansal said this led to mushrooming of vendors at markets and parking spaces in the city, including Sector 17, harassing both shoppers and traders.