Street vendors' Bill may end up allowing more encroachments on public space

On September 6, the Lok Sabha passed the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, 2012. While the bill is aimed at empowering poor people to earn a livelihood with respect, it will also give illegal hawkers a chance to encroach on more public space than they already do.

Once the bill is implemented, the police and municipal authorities will not be able to harass street vendors, which means moving them will become impossible. 

Meanwhile, in a pilot project, the civic body has shifted hawkers to designated hawker zones in a few areas of south Mumbai. “However, in most cases, the hawkers occupy the space given to them in the hawkers’ zone and also retain the claim on the illegal spot they were occupying. This makes the situation worse. In other cases, they simply refuse to go to the hawkers’ zone as they don’t get any business,” said a civic official.

Sanjay Khinesra, national general secretary of All India Citizens’ Vigilance Committee, an NGO, too agreed with Siddique. “This bill is supposed to be for the poor. However, hawkers in my area in Goregaon are richer than the average middle-class families. The bill, according to me, is not justified,” he added.

Indrani Malkani, ALM coordinator of D ward, however, said the bill can benefit both hawkers and people. “Hawkers survive because people need them. If they are harassed and their livelihood is taken away from them, they will turn to crime...We have successfully regularised the hawkers in D ward. The bill will hopefully smoothen the process,” she said.

About the Vendors Bill 2012
It provides for a survey of all existing street vendors, and subsequent survey at least once every five years, and provides that no street vendor shall be evicted or relocated, till the survey is completed and a certificate of vending issued to all street vendors. Thus the mechanism is to provide universal coverage, by protecting the street vendors from harassment and promoting their livelihood.

Street vendors are required to maintain cleanliness and public hygiene in vending zones and around and not to vend in ‘no-hawking zones’.