Mumbai: Hawker licence still a distant dream

The BMC had conducted a survey of city’s hawkers for licences in 2016. File pic

Hawker licences are unlikely to be distributed any time soon even as the state government recently issued an order scrapping the condition of domicile certificate. Civic officials said while the urban development department issued the order on Monday, the BMC had already received a written notification from the Directorate of Municipal Administration stating that domicile certificates were not required for hawker licence applicants. Meanwhile, there has been no decision on whether to issue the licences based on the old survey or a new one.

The order from the urban development department, headed by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, was issued ahead of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections. This is a move to woo North Indian voters in the city as now people can apply for hawker licence without domicile certificate, for which one needs to be a resident of Maharashtra for at least 15 years.

A senior BMC official said, "Around two months ago, in a written correspondence with the BMC, the Directorate of Municipal Administration stated that the domicile certificate was no longer needed to get a hawker's licence. So, we completed scrutiny of the old forms during the survey in 2016 which will be tabled in the town vending committee meeting."

Officials, however, kept mum on when licences will be distributed to the 15,361 people who were found eligible as per the 2016 survey. "Only the Town Vending Committee (TVC) can take a decision on it. We will invite a meeting of the existing TVC within two weeks," said an official.

Also Read: Mumbai-Pune stretch: Highway hawkers are shown the exit

‘Six years gone, but no action'

"We have been demanding that licences be issued to the selected vendors, but it has been six years and yet the BMC has not done anything. The decision about the domicile certificate is good, but what about those who were found eligible at the time of the survey in 2016? What's stopping BMC from issuing licences to them?" said Dayashankar Singh, founder of Azad Hawkers Union. He added, "Authorised hawkers have the power to elect a member to represent them in the TVC. With the BMC not issuing licences, this issue still remains unresolved."

Only 2 TVC meetings so far

"Issuing licences to hawkers and formation of the vending committee is an egg and hen issue, and only political will can solve it," said Vidya Vaidya, a member of the TVC formed by the BMC in 2019. The committee has had only two meetings till March 2020 and the BMC has since not informed the members about any further proceedings. Vaidya added that citizens need hawker-free roads. "Our only demand is to complete the procedure earliest," she said.

The BMC first began work on the hawkers' policy after the Parliament passed the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act in 2014, which was followed by a Supreme Court order. The civic body started the procedure to issue licences to hawkers in 2016. At the time, it had identified and distributed forms to 1.28 lakh hawkers and 99,435 of them had submitted applications with relevant documents. As the state government had made domicile certificates mandatory, only 15,361 hawkers were found eligible in 2019. However, the licences have not been issued yet.