Bill regularising hawkers gets passed in Parliament

It's official: The city will have about 2 lakh official hawkers and the BMC can do nothing but legalise them. The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, 2014, which provides for the protection of street vendors' livelihood rights and social security, was passed by Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. Lok Sabha passed it on September 6 last year. The approved bill will be duly notified and implemented once the Centre seeks the president's approval to make it a law.

The bill regulates street vending activities, ensuring urban street vendors' safety from police harassment. Mumbai has 16,000 licensed hawkers presently. The BMC, after the Supreme Court order, worked towards legalisation by setting up a town vending committee comprising of 30 members including the hawkers' union and resident associations along with NGOs and officials from planning authorities like the MMRDA and traffic police.

"The committee has already started deliberations and the next meeting will be in last week of February. Registration forms will be distributed in second week of March through 250 inspectors from the BMC's licence department, hawkers' union and the residents association. Distribution and filling of forms and other formalities will be video recorded", said Mohan Adtani, additional municipal commissioner.

"While the town vending committee will prepare the guidelines and framework of implementing the scheme, a two-member experts committee will prepare modules to decide, how, when and where the hawkers will be placed. This will be done with the help of a ward-level committee and the representative of the hawkers' union and residents association and NGOs," he said.