Mumbai: Hawker unions in wait-and-watch mode

Hawkers on MG Road in Ghatkopar West. File Pic/Anurag Ahire

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is gearing up for the election to the Town Vending Committee (TVC) to regularise hawkers and completed a draw for determining women's quotas in various categories. Though hawker unions strongly protested against the exercise, claiming it is based on data collected eight years ago, they are in wait-and-watch mode for now.

In 2014, following a Supreme Court order, Parliament enacted the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act. An essential component of this Act is the TVC, which oversees the issuance of licences to hawkers, manages pitches and regulates street vending in the city. The long-pending election schedule of the TVC has been announced and the entire process of election will be held from August 5 to 29. Even the draw process for women's reservation in various categories in the Street Vending Committees was held at the BMC headquarters on Monday.

The total number of registered street vendor voters (including the licenced ones) is 32,415. Elections will be held for a total of eight committees comprising eight members each. Out of these, three seats (one-third) are reserved for women. "We already opposed the election process as it is based on the data gathered eight years back. The data is outdated and so the entire process is baseless. The BMC is trying to manipulate things and telling lies to the court. We will expose them," said Shashank Rao, president of the Mumbai Hawkers' Union.

"We have already been speaking up against the election process. But now we are taking a stand to see what BMC is doing with the election. Let them do what they already started. At least they have woken up from 10 years of slumber," said Dayashankar Singh, founder of Azad Hawkers' Union. He added that the BMC added 22,000 hawkers which they selected from the process to the list of licenced hawkers. "The BMC doesn't act against licenced hawkers but doesn't allow these 22,000 hawkers. So how can they now combine both lists?" Singh said.

When the BMC began a survey in 2016, it identified and distributed forms to 1,28,000 hawkers, with 99,435 submitting applications along with the required documents. Due to the state government's requirement for domicile certificates, only 15,361 hawkers were deemed eligible in 2019. However, with the relaxation of the domicile rule, the BMC has since added another 7,000 hawkers to the list. In addition to that, the BMC added approximately 12,000 hawkers that were given licences in the 1970s.