Evicted street vendors demand rehabilitation

BHUBANESWAR: For the last 10 years 31-year-old

Bhaskar Pradhan

has been selling fruits at

Rajmahal Square

here. Some days back he was evicted from the spot, all of a sudden. A similar plight has befallen hundreds of road-side vendors in the city.

Now the state unit of the National Hawker Federation (NHF) has decided to raise the issue of eviction of street vendors. Members of the federation on Friday urged governor S C Jamir to help the vendors. They alleged that the state government is not implementing the Centre's Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014.

"The

Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation

(BMC) evicts street vendors without rehabilitating them," alleged the federation's state president, Jayant Kumar Das.

Das said the civic body doesn't follow the three major rules laid down in the Act. "The Act says that no street vendor shall be evicted till the survey is complete and the certificate of vending is issued. But it is not followed in letter and spirit," he claimed.

He said a town vending committee (TVC) was formed to look after the issues related to vendors. "The Act says the TVC should be formed wherein 40 per cent members will be the street vendors themselves. But the TVC in the city has 24 members with only four of them vendors." Das also alleged that the TVC doesn't hold a meeting regularly, violating the norms of the Act. "During survey, the BMC has left out many vendors. It is very unfortunate," he added.

City mayor

Anant Narayan Jena

said the vendors who were obstructing traffic and encroach upon drains were evicted from the spot. "But we are trying to rehabilitate the vendors according to the law," Jena said. He added that the affected vendors can approach the BMC with their grievances. "The survey of vendors is still on. We will consider their cases," he assured.

Jena said he would look into the complaints about the TVC. "We will empower the TVC to look after the interests of the vendors in the city," he added.

"The BMC has enumerated a total 21,153 street vendors in the city. Though the last date for applying of identity cards for vendors is over, we are still listening to the grievances of hawkers and street vendors," Jena said.