Town Vending Committee to decide fate of hawkers

While the Bombay High Court ordered that hawkers can be allowed only in designated hawking zones, no such zones exist in the city as of now. It is the Town Vending Committee (TVC) that will survey and demarcate legal and illegal hawking zones in the city.

Vendors across the city are demanding the implementation of the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, which stipulated the formation of a TVC tasked with the job of ensuring that all existing street vendors, identified in the survey, are accommodated in the vending zones.

The TVC’s formation has been delayed for three years now, as it awaited the state government’s approval. The civic body has brought on board eight hawkers associations in the proposed TVC to involve all the stakeholders.