Ward-wise town panels to help regulate vendors?

Mumbai: To expedite the process of implementing the hawkers’ policy, the Brihanmumbai Muni-cipal Corporation (BMC) is planning to form ward-wise or zonal town vending committees (TVC) in the city. Earlier, there was only one TVC for the entire city.

Nidhi Choudhari, deputy municipal commissioner (removal and encroachment), said that the BMC is contemplating forming ward-wise TVCs taking into account city’s huge size.

The role of a TVC would be to demarcate hawking and non-hawking zones, identify sites and spaces for hawking, regulate timings across the city based on the state government’s hawking policy.

“A single TVC may prove to be insufficient considering the difficulties involved in studying hawkers’ issues. Therefore a TVC at the ward level or zone level is likely to prove beneficial. It will help the civic body to tackle the area-wise issue of hawkers,” she said.

The BMC has started the process of forming new town vending committee to decide eligibility of city hawkers. In May this year the BMC first invited members from different sectors to form the TVC, which will be headed by the municipal commissioner.

The BMC has already submitted 12 members for 20-member TVC to the state government’s urban development department for approval. But eight representatives from hawkers are yet to be added to the committee. The BMC is planning to appoint these eight members from 13 hawker associations via a lottery system.

Hawking policy

The Maharashtra government’s hawking policy is meant to regulate hawking by issuing licences, marking out spots where hawking is allowed and preventing hawkers from encroaching upon footpaths and railway stations. According to the policy, only people who are domiciles of Maharashtra (having spent 15 years living in the state) will be considered for while vending licences are issued. There are presently 15,169 licensed hawkers in the city.