Govt mulls order for safety of newspaper vendors

The government would soon direct all the municipal corporations to ensure that newspaper vendors in their cities are protected. The government would hold a meeting within a fortnight for sorting out problems of newspaper vendors in the state.

Through a call attention motion in the state Assembly on Wednesday, BJP's Ashish Shelar raised the issue of newspaper vendors' protection. Replying to the same Minister of State for Home Dr Ranjeet Patil said that he would hold a meeting with all the stakeholders in the next fifteen days and sort out their issues.

Shelar said that there are 15,000 newspaper vendors and three thousand stalls in the Thane and Mumbai Metropolitan region. He also said that 1.5 lakh families are dependent on this occupation but vendors have to face action by the local bodies as well as the Railways since some of them carry out their business on Railway premises.

Shelar pointed out that during a meeting with Minister for Labor Sambhaji Patil-Nilangekar, it was decided that a welfare board for newspaper vendors would be set up and said that it should be done immediately.

Patil informed the House that Shelar had met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis along with a delegation of newspaper vendors on October 24, 2017 and the Chief Minister had directed Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in this regard.

Patil informed that all the municipal corporations would be directed to ensure protection and safety of newspaper vendors. He said that while finalizing hawkers' zones in the next two months, a separate provision for newspaper vendors would be made.

HELPING HAND

• Shelar demanded that whenever there is action against hawkers, newspaper vendors need to be spared from it. MLAs Sanjay Kelkar and Mangal Prabhat Lodha also raised the issue.