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The BMC has mapped out about 60,000 hawking 'patches' (one will usually accommodate one vendor) across the city and will try to accommodate around 90,000 hawkers at different time slots. The changes in the hawker policy, brought about after a new central law, will mean that Mumbaikars will have to deal with at least four times the number of hawkers they have to now at any given time of the day. There are around 15,000 licenced hawkers in the city now. Citizens are up in arms. Residents of many areas have started protesting with BMC officials, complaining that the civic authorities are not considering their interest while drawing up hawking zones. The proposed hawking zone plan marks out 3,727 streets across the city. The western suburbs will have the most slots with 1,646 streets chosen as hawker zones. There will be 1,339 such streets in the island city and 742 in the eastern suburbs. BMC officials pointed out that according to the formula suggested in the new law, the civic body should ensure that up to 2.5% of a city's population can go about hawking with dignity. For Mumbai, it would mean up to 3.1 lakh hawkers. But officials said they received about 99,000 applications. "The Act says the maximum limit is 2.5% of the total population, but considering other factors like availability of space, security, pedestrians' and residents' interest and other related aspects. We are trying to accommodate the maximum number of hawkers," said B G Pawar, deputy municipal commissioner (encroachment). On Friday, a delegation of residents and shop-keepers' associations, along with local corporators, met assistant municipal commissioner (A ward) Chandrashekhar Choure. They said the planned 6,900 hawking patches in the ward (Colaba-Cuff Parade-Nariman Point-CST) would make life miserable. "Everyone is talking about hawkers' interest, why are they not trying to understand our problem? Colaba is a very sensitive area. By putting large numbers of hawkers in the area, they are compromising on security. It will also badly affect tourism," said Subhash Motwani of the Clean Heritage Colaba Residents Association. Another resident Rajendra Singh-Bedi said: "We need our interests taken into account and we should be heard. Our lives can't be turned miserable to accommodate hawkers. No one knows the antecedents of these (hawker) applicants, they will be a security threat." As the residents demanded to be heard, Chaure suggested they send their suggestions and objections to the civic authority and promised they will be considered before a final decision is taken. But he pointed out that the civic authority is bound to implement the new law on hawkers.
Keywords
hawkers, street vendors, BMC, migrant labour, hawker zones
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