The Hindu : National : NGOs demand implementation of national policy on vendors

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 23, 2006

National

National

NGOs demand implementation of national policy on vendors

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Two non-governmental organisations — Manushi Sangathan and the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) — have sought an end to the clearance operations on street vendors of the Capital until the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) creates an adequate number of hawking zones.

The Union Urban Development Ministry should take steps to implement the national policy for street vendors by including it as one of the mandatory requirements in the Jawaharlal Nehru National Renewal Mission and give teeth to the national policy by enacting suitable legislation to implement it, in consultation with genuinely representative organisations of street vendors, Madhu Purnima Kishwar of Manushi Sangathan told reporters here on Wednesday.

Ms. Kishwar said the Ministries of Urban Development, Employment and Poverty Alleviation should create an empowered task force for the speedy implementation of the hawkers policy. She said removing vendors from the urban centres, as per the Supreme Court order of March 8, would cause rise in the prices of consumer goods apart from spelling doom for the urban poor who earn their living from hawking and vending in Delhi. Its impact will be felt not just in Delhi but also on one crore hawkers and their dependents in other cities.

According to Ms. Kishwar, street vendors not only generated employment for themselves, they also help generate employment in the farm sector and small-scale industries by acting as the most widespread and low cost distribution channel. "Vendors in several cities have been battling the economic war declared on them in the form of clearance operations as a result of which at least three of them have publicly committed suicide in the past few months," she pointed out.

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