Formation of the committee is aimed at safeguarding the livelihood of street vendors. With this development, the NMC will identify hawking and no-hawking zones in the city
Nagpur: Finally, the Maharashtra Government has formed an 18-member Town Vending Committee (TVC) for Nagpur city with representation from officials, police and hawkers’ associations — a long-pending proposal aimed at safeguarding the livelihood of street vendors. With this development, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation now inches closer to identify hawking and no-hawking zones.
Today’s Rate
Thursday 03 Oct. 2024
Municipal Commissioner and Administrator Radhakrishnan B is the Chairman of the Committee whereas Commissioner of Police, Representative of Nagpur Metropolitan Region Development Authority (NMRDA) or Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT), Joint Commissioner of Police, and Medical Officer (Health) of NMC are the Government nominated members on the committee. The government has also nominated 13 members comprising civic activist Kaustav Chatterjee, Sandip Mankar, Aashish Naik, Devendra Mehar, Sachin Punayani, Working Manager of Bank of India, Hawkers’ representatives Abdul Razzaque Qureshi, Gopichand Ambhore, Pramod Mishra, Neha Ochani, Ritu Mohabe, Maroti Patel and Sandeep Guhe.
However, the appointment of Sandip Mankar as representative of the NGO has come under scanner. Being an active BJP office-bearer, the Eknath Shinde led government has nominated Mankar in place of its earlier NGO representative Vinod Taywade, who is now planning to challenge the notification in the court.
Following the Supreme Court directives and subsequent order from the High Court on implementation of the national policy on street vendors, the government issued the notification on October 6.
Formation of a TVC is mandatory under the Street Vendors’ Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending Act 2014. But the same was awaited since October 2019. The 18-member TVC comprises seven representatives of hawkers’ associations across the corporation limits, two from NGOs, two from residents’ welfare associations, one representative each from market and traders’ association and nationalised bank.
In October 2021, the government had submitted to the High Court that the TVC had been formed, and informed about the appointment of Vinod Taywade and Kaustav Chatterjee as two members from NGO category.
Now with this development, a senior NMC official from the NMC’s market department said the constituted panel would work out details such as earmarking vending/hawking zones in the city and registering the hawkers and vendors, issuing them identity cards and allocating them areas. According to him, a survey would also be carried out to enumerate hawkers and vendors operating in the corporation limits. After the survey and identification of street vendors, the civic body will collect some fees based on the category of street vending.
Sources, however, said with no open spaces available in commercial areas where hawkers have already thrived and increasing with every passing day, it would be a herculean task for the panel to earmark hawking and no-hawking zones in the city. Nagpur has around 65,000 hawkers, but very few were registered with NMC. In the past, NMC had identified 53 hawkers’ zones. After this notification of forming TVC, a fresh process to enrol hawkers and declaring hawking and no-hawking zones will be initiated.
