More than two years since its conceptualisation, New Delhi Municipal Council’s (NDMC) ambitious project, smart card for street vendors, continues to remain on paper. For years now, the civic body has only been able to draw up multiple lists of legal street hawkers in Central Delhi.
An official added on condition of anonymity, “While on paper, the civic body has 961 licensed street vendors in the area, at least 1,000 more operate using forged documents.” After several attempts of making fresh digitised records of licensed street vendors in areas under its jurisdiction, the civic body is planning to take up the project once again. In 2013, the agency had constituted a committee that was asked to prepare a fresh “floor plan” demarcating specific areas which will be designated only for street vendors. While the role of that committee remains unknown so far, the NDMC has now again set up a new committee — the Town Vending Committee — for the same purpose.
In September 2013, the NDMC had set a two-month deadline for issuing smart cards to hawkers. However, the smart cards never materialised even as the actual number of hawkers in the area continues to rise. Officials blame the repeated delays on the fake documents in possession of a majority of these vendors. “It has been very difficult for us to segregate licensed hawkers from the fake ones as most possess a duplicate copy of the licence. Some do not have documents at all, but still demand a place as they claim to be trading at a spot for years through their nominees,” explained a senior NDMC official.
The civic body also added that it becomes difficult for the inspectors conducting site visits and monitoring the functioning of these vendors to verify them as hard copy of the documents are the only means to authenticate that they are license holders.
The New Delhi area currently has five vending zones, including Connaught Place, Janpath, Chanakyapuri, Sarojini Nagar and Safdarjung. In Connaught Place, the area in front of Palika Bazar, the entire road leading to its parking lot and beyond is the hub for these hawkers. The busy tourist-cum-business site alone has 48 tehbazari allottees. Besides these, 75 of them are operating with stay orders from the High Court.
