Street vendors’ draw of lots cancelled as Pkl MC dissolves town vending panel

Barinderjit.saluja

Panchkula: The

draw of lots

for street

vendors

has been cancelled as

Panchkula Municipal Corporation

has dissolved the existing town vending committee comprising nine members. The new town vending committee constituted with recently-elected councillors is yet to hold the meeting.

The draw of lots for street vendors was to be held on August 25 at the MC building in Sector 12 at 11am and has now been deferred. Street vendors were to be allotted space in sectors 2, 4, 8, 12, 15 and 19. MC issued notice for cancellation of the draw on Tuesday.

The town vending committee has been dissolved on the orders of the MC commissioner and a new committee has been constituted. A fresh date for holding draw of lots for street vendors will be decided in the meeting of the new town vending committee. However, the date for the meeting is yet to be announced.

The town vending committee, which has been dissolved, comprised members like former deputy mayor Sunil Talwar, BJP leader Sanjay Ahuja, former councillor C B Goyal, Lilly Bawa and others. The new committee comprises BJP councillor Harender Mallik, Jai Kaushik, Rakesh Kumar, Congress councillor Gautam Prasad, former Municipal Council president B B Singhal, BJP leader S P Gupta, Rajinder Nuniwal, Rohir Sen, JJP leader Mahender Sharma, and eight members of street vendors body.

The eight street vendors are Sumit Kumar, Avdhesh Kumar, Kiran, Pramod Shah, Rajkumar, Vikas Sethi and Shehzad Alam. The committee also has DC, Panchkula, ACP, Panchkula, ACP Traffic, CMO Panchkula, MC superintending engineer, fire officer and labour inspector as members.

Till date, the MC has been successful in allocating street vending sites in sectors 4, 15 and 19 for approximately 458 vendors. The Sector 19 site faced opposition from residents and was stalled. Only 50% of the total 458 vendors in the first phase have acquired sites in sectors 4 and 15.

Under the MC plan, authorities need 24 sites in the town for vending zones identified by Huda. In the survey, MC had identified 4,000 vendors to be rehabilitated in the city but only 200 to 250 have been allocated sites till now.

The design plan of sites provided for washrooms for the vendors and drinking water for shopkeepers and commuters.

Officials said the street vendor survey was conducted by a mobile-based application using GIS mapping with a digital photograph of vendors under the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014. The Parliament passed the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, which guaranteesthem the right to work as street vendors. They can be evicted only under provisions of the Act. The MC will also conduct vending committee elections, which were discontinued last year.


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