Policy for street vendors distant dream
Aakanksha N Bhardwaj
Jalandhar, December 26
A policy mooted for the welfare of street vendors in the city in 2014 has not been implemented so far. Many blame the lackadaisical attitude of the Municipal Corporation for the same.
2 more sites to be made operational today
Vendors have been moved to four sites while two sites will be made operational by Wednesday. It’s a long process, but the work has started with an aim to accommodate 7,000 vendors.Basic amenities will be provided to the vendors soon. — Aditya Uppal, MC Commissioner
Street vendors’ resentment towards the police has been grabbing headlines in the city for some days now. The Police Commissionerate had served them notices to remove their carts from footpaths and roads. Meanwhile, local street vendors have been protesting against the administration, accusing the authorities of not taking their welfare into consideration.
The civic body had selected 34 zones for shifting street vendors in 2020, but nothing concrete has been done in this regard in the last four years. The administration has not even been able to achieve the target of starting six of these 34 zones, which were supposed to be set up in the first phase.
A private firm, which was assigned the contract for the project, conducted a survey for two years under the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014. Besides identifying sites, over 12,000 street vendors were registered in the city under the survey, which was completed in 2017.
Vending zones under the project were to be equipped with pucca floors as well as features like proper segregation, sheds, toilets, drinking water supply and other basic facilities. Unfortunately, the promising plan is still on paper.
It has been learnt that videography of vendors was done and the firm was paid lakhs of rupees to carry out work during the survey.
According to a rough estimate, the MC reportedly paid the company Rs 50 lakh — Rs 300 per vendor that amounts to Rs 36 lakh, besides other charges.
MC Commissioner Aditya Uppal said vendors had already been moved to four sites that were activated while two other sites would be activated by tomorrow.
“It’s a long process, but, the work has started with an aim to accommodate around 7,000 vendors. Also, basic amenities will be provided to the vendors soon,” added Uppal.
Jagdish Raja, former Mayor from the Congress, said it was everybody’s failure that nothing could be done for the vendors. “I regret that even I could not get the policy implemented during my tenure as it is the need of the hour,” he said.
The district president of the BJP said, “Strangely, zones were made years ago, but nothing was done to implement the policy on ground. Clearly, there has been a collusion between leaders and officials. Something should have been done before action was initiated against the vendors.”
