Only 5,000 hawkers eligible for licence in Mumbai
In May, BMC had listed 23,265 hawkers as eligible, but after domicile certificates became a must, the numbers went down
After scrutinising documents submitted by 99,437 hawkers, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corportation found only around 5,000 to be eligible for a license. In May, the BMC had listed 23,265 hawkers as eligible, but after domicile certificates became a must, the numbers went down. The civic body has now extended the deadline to submit domicile certificate to October 15.
The civic body has been working on hawker policy and its execution for the past four years. The survey was initiated in 2014 after the Supreme Court on September 9, 2013, passed an order asking for the implementation of the national hawkers' policy, 2009, and the Street Vendors' (protection of livelihood and regulation of street vending) Act, 2014.
The BMC had started a campaign under which 99,437 hawkers submitted registration forms. Finally, in 2018, the BMC scrutinised all the forms and zeroed down on 23,265 hawkers who have all the necessary documents. But in January again, the state government cleared its hawkers' policy, which only allowed people possessing a domicile certificate.
The BMC had given a deadline of up to September 15 for the same, but only 5,000 hawkers could submit their certificates in time.
"We already have 15,000 licensed vendors and are hoping all the hawkers to submit their documents within the deadline," said Nidhi Choudhari, Deputy Municipal Commissioner and in-charge of hawkers policy execution. "Many Hawkers requested us to extend the deadline as there were many holidays and they weren't able to get the domicile certificate from the collector office. So we extend it to October 15," she added.
The civic body also finalised around 22,000 pitches for the 88,000 slots available on roads and public places.
A BMC official said, "As of now, there are 15,000 licensed hawkers while another 5000 are eligible. We have received a total of 22,000 pitches so far, which means we can allot one to every hawker."
The Supreme Court order had proposed licenses for 2.5 per cent of the city's population, meaning Mumbai can accommodate around 3 lakh hawkers.