Street vendors see hope in Yogi
In a city where a vendor immolated himself at the office of the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) in 2005, the plan of chief minister Yogi Adityanath to create vending zones has come as a ray of hope for many.
Street vendors of various localities have hailed the initiative and are hopeful that the Yogi government would find out solution to their problems.
According to LMC officials, an area of the size of more than 50 football fields will be required to relocate street vendors in the city.
General secretary of the National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) Gokul Prasad said, “We cater to poor and lower middle class which comprises a major part of the population. We are not against regulation of street vendors but we are against their suppression and displacement without relocation.”
Additional municipal commissioner PK Srivastava, however, blamed street vendors for slow progress in creation of vending zones.
“LMC had decided to issue identity cards to all street vendors after their verification in 2015. As many as 16 associations of street vendors gave more than 62,000 names for identity cards. But they did not agree to shifting their stalls to the land which the LMC identified for vending zones in Alambagh, Aminabad, Chowk, Charbagh, Naka Hindola and Nakhas. They said they had been putting up stalls for years and wanted a permanent place which was not possible as roads in these areas are very narrow,” Srivastava said.
“LMC will implement the national policy for street vendors but we have limited space. Wherever there is space, street vendors are not interested in shifting,” he said.
Nadeem, who heads the Saptahik Patri Dukandar Kalyan Samiti, said the former president of the association committed selfimmolation for creation of vending zone and ending the system of ‘tehbazari’. We will be happy if the CM gives us land so than we can make both ends meet.”
Officials of LMC and LDA admit encroachments have consumed nearly 40 per cent of the streets in the city.