The High Court on Thursday asked the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to respond to a plea by the National Hawker Federation challenging the Delhi Master Plan 2021. The petition says the Master Plan does not take into account the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014.
A Bench of Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh sought the response from DDA and posted the case for hearing on January 12, 2022.
The federation, which claims to be an association of street vendors and 1,188 unions in the country, said the overarching objective of the Street Vendors Act, 2014, is to provide for and promote a supportive environment for the urban street vendors to carry out their vocation, while ensuring that vending activities do not lead to overcrowding and unsanitary conditions in public spaces.
The plea, filed through lawyer Kawalpreet Kaur, said the Master Plan 2021 – which was approved in 2007 — “wrongfully retains” provisions that do not reflect the criteria set out for street vendors under the Street Vendors Act. It further stated that the sections for “informal sector” under the Master Plan are “manifestly arbitrary” and make no mention of the Street Vendors Act.
The plea said that street vendors formed an integral part of the State’s economy and most of them were forced to secure their livelihoods by carrying out trade on the streets because the government authorities “miserably failed to secure a decent livelihood for the urban poor”.
