Over 9,000 hawking pitches to be marked
MUMBAI: Four years after the hawkers’ policy first came into place, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will now mark hawking pitches in two zones — 5 and 7 — this week. These zones include Deonar, Chembur, Kurla, Kandivli, Dahisar, Borivli and Gorai areas.
According to officials, the BMC will mark more than 9,000 pitches by November 15 and hopes to finish its scrutiny of all applications submitted by hawkers. Zone 5, which includes Deonar, Govandi, Chembur and Kurla, will have 5,037 pitches and Zone 7, which includes Kandivli, Dahisar, Borivli and Gorai, will have 4,460 pitches.
However, hawkers unions said these pitches were too small to run their businesses.
A senior official from the markets department said, “We are now pushing our officers to scrutinise the documents so that the pitches can be allotted by January 1 . It is high time that we allocate the pitches after the policy came into force in 2014. As of now, only two zones will be marked by November 15, but we hope that by December-end, pitches are marked in other zones too.”
The official further added that there are 80 hawking zones or designated roads in Zone 5 and 63 in Zone 7 where these pitches will be marked. “The Town Vending Committee (TVC), which includes hawkers union representatives, will have the power to decide the pitches and also decide on the eligibility of the candidates,” added the officer. The officer added that each pitch will be of 1mx1m and for specially abled it would be about 2m x 1m
Dayashankar Singh, president, Azad Hawkers’ Union said, “The TVC meetings are a joke as there is no one to listen to us. We have had only two meetings in the past one year and each hawker will get about 1m x 1m area, which is too small to run any kind of business.”
The civic body’s delay in implementing the policy might also mean that the qualified vendors might get the benefits for another six months as the act , The Street Vendors (Protection and Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 calls for a survey every five years. The first survey was conducted in June 2014.