Shiv Shankar, a 45-year-old lemon juice vendor based in east Delhi’s Patparganj, feels hopeless about the vendor survey in which he participated last August to obtain a Certificate of Vending (CoV). This document would have allowed him to work without harassment by the police and civic authorities.
Mr. Shankar said he made several trips to the offices of East civic body over the past seven months but has not heard back from the officials. Meanwhile, he continues to pay fines for “illegal hawking” to the police.
Many other street vendors like him face a range of issues related to the survey, which was being conducted by all the civic bodies, including New Delhi Municipal Council and Delhi Cantonment Board, in their respective jurisdictions, supervised by the Delhi government.
Some say they are yet to be surveyed. Those who have received their CoV, say their certificates don’t specify a vending zone, which allows the authorities to take action against them.
To simplify the process, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) was appointed as the nodal authority to conduct this survey in February this year. The SDMC launched an online portal to identify street vendors who were left in previous surveys of the Town Vending Committee (TVC).
The vendors’ association, however, criticised the surveys saying that the onus of identification had been placed on the vendors themselves.
According to the action plan, street vendors have to register for the survey on the civic body’s website, while the empaneled agencies are tasked with conducting the surveys based on the applications and submitting their responses to the respective TVC.
When asked about the progress of the ongoing survey via the online portal, a senior civic official said the survey is yet to be concluded and deadline to conclude the survey has not been fixed.
“The vending zones will be specified on the certificates only when the survey is completed and after a new TVC is formed. The process of identifying the vending zones has already started. We will have some updates on this in the coming weeks,” the senior civic official said.
According to the data provided by Delhi Street Hawkers Survey, conducted by the government, 76,311 vendors have been identified, of which 66,332 were cleared for certification.
SDMC’s Standing Committee Chairman, B.K. Oberoi, agreed that the vending certificates stand “null and void”, as they do not mention a vending zone. “But a major problem that the corporation faces is that many vendors appear at a location just for the survey, and we never see them in that area after,” said Mr. Oberoi.
Arbind Singh, president, National Association of Street Vendors of India, said many vendors continue to remain unaware of the online portal while the corporations have “not respected” the CoVs that they have issued.
He added, “This has led to a dip in the enthusiasm among the left-out vendors to register for the survey. Many of the TVCs are yet to distribute the COVs, such as Shahdara (South). But what is the use of these COVs if they do not mention the vending spot?”
