We provide newspapers to the ‘always-in-a-rush’ Mumbaikars, we get them chai and inexpensive snacks when they are tired, we mend their broken sandals and sell umbrellas when it pours during monsoon and people are caught unawares,” said Munawar Ansari, a newspaper vendor outside the CST station. “If we are asked to move more than 50 metres from the railway station, who will it benefit? Our losses aside, do you expect people to go to a designated area to get these basic services while rushing to office?” he asked. Ansari and his fellow hawkers did not set up their stalls on Wednesday, gathering instead across the road at Azad Maidan, along with hundreds of other hawkers who were protesting the proposed hawking policy to be implemented by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. A key class of service providers, including the 18,000 licensed ones will be deeply impacted by the upcoming BMC budget next week. In a first, hawking is expected to be monitored and regulated through a hawking policy that will assign demarcated pitches and hawking zones. Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte is expected to make announcements regarding this in his budget speech on February 3. “We have been on this street for over 50 years. Now, we will be evicted at random. How can the BMC justify the delay in giving us proper licenses and a proper place to sell our wares?” asked 52-year-old Ratna Arjun, who sells fruits outside the Churchgate station. Last year, the civic body had begun surveying the hawkers and received around 99,000 forms. The survey followed the Supreme Court order in 2013 to implement the national hawking policy of 2009. “We have asked for at least Rs 3 crore to be set aside in the budget only to scrutinise the hawker forms using a software and to get hawkers registered and provide them ID cards. Provisions for these plans are likely to be made in the upcoming budget. The software should be ready in eight days and the entire process of registration should be complete in two months once the town vending committee approves it,” said B G Pawar, Deputy Municipal Commissioner (Encroachments). The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 2014 aims at regulating hawkers in public areas and protecting their rights. A committee headed by Kunte laid down rules for hawkers that are likely to be passed soon. Meanwhile, though the civic body wants to rid the city’s roads of hawkers, it has shown little progress in developing municipal markets, an alternative for citizens. From last year’s budget allocation, of the Rs 113 crore budget allocated for municipal markets, only Rs 42 crore was spent by BMC till December. There are 92 markets owned by the BMC across the city, of which 18 markets have to be redeveloped in accordance with a new policy passed by the civic body in 2013. Over a year after a fresh policy was passed for the redevelopment of 25 civic markets in the city which are in a dilapidated condition and need immediate repair, the BMC had until November issued a commencement certificate only for five markets. “The municipal markets are filthy and people do not wish to go there. The BMC spends on ‘redeveloping’ markets, but does not maintain them or make them attractive to citizens. This increases the citizens’ dependence on hawkers,” explained James John of citizens’ group AGNI. John suggested that once a realistic hawking policy was in place, the BMC should charge hawkers for utilising the roads and footpaths. “Charge hawkers on a daily basis for hawking or provide them coupons to sell their wares at proper marketplaces. The BMC focusses on big revenue generators like octroi and central government funding and does not take into account small revenue generating options like these, which in return will help monitor hawking. The money generated can be used to develop hawking zones and plazas.” While heading the protest against the hawking policy on Wednesday, Shashank Rao of the Mumbai Hawkers’ Union said the Act was not being implemented properly. “If these rules are passed in the Assembly, no vendor can do business in Mumbai,” said Rao, who is a member of the town vending committee of the BMC. According to him, the rules stipulate that no hawking is allowed within 50 metres of government buildings and entries and exits of railway stations and bus stops. No hawking be allowed at junctions, in front of shops, within 50 metres of places of worship or on footpaths less than 10 ft and not on traffic congested roads or outside commercial and residential places, the policy stated, according to Rao, who claimed to have accessed the policy. “How many footpaths in Mumbai are 10 ft wide? If all these conditions are put in place, there is realistically no place left for hawkers. Areas around stations are natural markets because of the footfall,” he added. 70,000 hawker pitches to be demarcated Within 15 days, assistant commissioners of the 24 civic wards are set to demarcate hawking zones in their respective wards. This process has been done by a committee in each ward and is on the verge of completion. The committee included representatives of hawkers. According to Sharad Bande, an official from the BMC’s license department, roughly 70,000 pitches will be demarcated. So far, only one hawker’s plaza has come up, in Dadar, and is barely occupied, admitted civic officials. The hawkers, although considered a nuisance on roads and footpaths, are also an integral part of most Mumbaikars’ lives. For homemaker Daisy Chettiar, the vegetable vendor outside her building is a quintessential part of her daily routine. “Their vegetables are cheap and I’m assured of good quality. Once these vendors go elsewhere, I will have to depend on marts for my vegetables, which are more expensive and inconvenient,” she said.
