4 years on, Delhi to elect town vending panels

NEW DELHI: The battle between hawkers and the municipal corporations is a perennial one, and another skirmish has broken out during the ongoing anti-encroachment campaign ordered by the Supreme Court.
The lasting solution to encroachment by hawkers is to constitute town vending committees, but it is only now, four years after the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, was passed by Parliament, Delhi is finally starting the preparation of electoral rolls for vendors to elect committee members. The town vending committees (TVCs) are expected to regulate vending activities in the city, create no-vending zones, establish hawking timings and protect the rights and dignity of street sellers.

The 1.3 lakh vendors, identified as such by the RC Chopra Committee in 2007, will send 12 representatives to the 30-member TVCs, each of which will look after 8-12 municipal wards. New Delhi Municipal Council and Delhi will have 12 elected vendor representatives, the remaining 18 being corporation and health officials and police and RWA representatives.”

The process so far was mired in objections to several clauses, among them the number of such committees. The AAP government had proposed 71 TVCs, one per assembly constituency, but this was opposed by street vendor associations. The large number of committees facilitated by the amended rules remains a concern, said Arvind Singh, national coordinator of the National Association of Street Vendors of India.

“We had demanded one committee for each of Delhi’s 12 administrative zones,” Singh said. “Too many TVCs will not only create confusion and complexity, but can also derail the process.” Officials and vendors alike are aware that the demand that elections be conducted by the election commission rather than the corporations and issues such as lowering of vendor age to 14 and the ongoing litigation could still stall the long overdue process.

Cantonment Board will have one vending committee of their own. The north and south corporation have issued notices for verification of electoral rolls to be finished by April 20. East too is finalising the process. “The pioneer committees will carry out surveys of the areas under their jurisdiction and start distributing vending certificates. By recognising legitimate vendors, we can expect steady revenues and reduce congestion by limiting the number of vendors,” an official explained.

Delhi government notified the rules for the formation of TVCs in January. Under the amended rules, the eligibility age for vendors has been lowered from 18 to 14. Some changes have also been effected in the appellate mechanism, and cooking in public places has been allowed.

Thirteen of the 25-28 TVCs in Delhi will fall in areas under the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, which has 104 wards. A licensing department official elaborated, “Each 30-member committee