Ambala street vendors to be registered, relocated

Nitin Jain

Tribune News Service

Ambala, December 5

Street vendors will be registered, relocated and given dedicated place to work in Ambala. At the same time, crowded public places, busy roads and streets will be freed of the congestion caused by unregistered vendors in the district.

To begin with, Barara, a sub-division headquarters in Ambala district, has been selected to implement the scheme on a pilot basis.

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the Town Vending Committee, chaired by the Deputy Commissioner Ashok Kumar Sharma, here today.

To implement the scheme, a private firm has been roped in to conduct survey and carry out the logistics in the field.

Divulging the details of the scheme, the Deputy Commissioner said all street vendors operating in the district would be identified during the survey, following which they would be registered and given dedicated place to carry out their business. All registered vendors would also be issued identity cards.

This has been done to regulate the business of street vendors, who were presently operating on their whims and fancies from the places of their choice causing congestion at the crowded public places, busy roads and streets across the district.

The private firm representative disclosed that around 200 street vendors had been identified during a preliminary survey conducted in Barara and work was on to scan the entire area so that no existing vendor was left out.

Sharma asked the district officials concerned to identify the places to relocate the registered street vendors in different parts of the district.

“The places should be selected keeping in mind that they should not cause any hardships to the locals or disrupt free flow of vehicular traffic. At the same time, the areas should have potential for street vendors to earn their livelihood by conducting their business well,” he directed.

The DC also reviewed the progress of rice-for-plastic drive under which free rice was distributed against single-use plastic in the district from November 7 to 30.

Salient features

• All street vendors to be identified, registered, issued identity cards.
• Dedicated places to be earmarked in different parts of the district for registered street vendors to operate.