The former Minister S.A. Ramdas has described eviction of the street vendors by the Mysuru City Corporation as “inhuman and illegal”. He also expressed surprise over the “adamant attitude” of the Commissioner in evicting mobile eateries despite the instruction from the Urban Development Minister Vinay Kumar Sorake that mobile eateries should be allowed to transact business. Mr. Ramdas, who led the street food vendors’ delegation to the Mayor and Commissioner of MCC, later told The Hindu that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation under the National Urban Livelihood Mission had instructed all the civic bodies, including municipalities and corporations, to provide basic amenities to street vendors to carry out their businesses and not to disturb them under the pretext of cleanliness. The Ministry had also directed the civic bodies to impart training on maintaining cleanliness and supplying hygienic food to customers, Mr. Ramdas added.
He questioned the Commissioner as to how he had taken action all of a sudden on “poor vendors” without giving notice to them. He added that the corporation had kept aside Rs. 2 crore in 2013, when he (Ramdas) was the district in-charge Minister to provide basic amenities to street food vendors and to give them training on various aspects and he questioned the Commissioner why he had not used the money for the purpose it had been kept aside.
He alleged that he had seen the corporation dumping food prepared by mobile eateries into a drain and he had taken photographs of it. He said that he had sent letters to the National Human Rights Commission, Prime Minister of India and leaders of different parties and also to the State Urban Development Minister and top officials of the Urban Development Department.
There are over 6,000 street food vendors in Mysuru city and they are all living in pathetic condition, he said, adding that it was a hand-to-mouth existence for them. The Commissioner and Mayor should have taken into consideration their living conditions if not anything else before evicting them, he said.
He said that he suspected that the Mayor and the Commissioner may have buckled under pressure of vested interests and must have taken action against street vendors.
It may be recalled that the MCC on May 13 had cracked down on fast food vendors at many places in the city, evicting them from streets saying food sold on streets was a health hazard. However, the association of street vendors had met the Urban Development Minster a few days later and got him to direct the Commissioner not to disturb them. Then the MCC allowed them to function for one or two days and again it directed them to stop their business. The corporation seized the food materials prepared by the eateries while few other food vendors took it to orphanages and distributed it there.
