Capital to adopt Mumbai model

New Delhi: Capital’s civic body wants to adopt the Mumbai model for about five lakh street vendors who are perpetually hounded by the police. Delhi Municipal Corporation’s counsel Sanjiv Sen on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to direct a survey as was done in Mumbai to first determine hawking and no-hawking zones and then ascertain who the eligible hawkers were to operate in each zones.

The hawkers’ counsel told the Supreme Court, which is currently hearing a batch of petitions relating to hawkers’ problems, that, of nearly five lakh hawkers in the Capital, only about 15,000 would be eligible to eke out their livelihood under the scheme.

The counsel said that all of them should be regularised, as hawking is the only source of their livelihood, a protected fundamental right. Judges asked the Centre to file an affidavit on the issue. They will hear the petitions on September 12.