The Dhanbad Municipal Corporation is carrying out a survey according to the state urban development department’s directive to provide street vendors a QR Code based Smart Identity Card.

The vendors face regular eviction in the name of anti encroachment drive due to lack of any identity document and will not have to face any further difficulties.

The survey is being conducted through the Cluster Resource Persons and Town Vending Committees members in all the five circles of Dhanbad Municipal Corporation including, Jharia, Dhanbad, Sindri, Katras and Chhatatand and is aimed at providing a QR code based Smart certificate of Vending which will help them get space allotment at the upcoming vending zones of the civic body.

Talking to The Telegraph Online on Sunday, Chandra Shekhar, City Manager of Dhanbad Municipal Corporation (DMC) looking after the survey work said, “All relevant data including name, age, address, mobile number, place of vending, items being dealt by street vendors, years of his operation are being collected as per the survey and all the data can be accessed by scanning the QR Code based Smart Identity Card.”

“The Smart Identity card will make them eligible for all the government sponsored welfare schemes meant for the street vendors under the national urban livelihood mission or any other relevant schemes like the PM Street Vendors Atma Nirbhar Nidhi Yojna,” said Chandra Shekhar.

A previous survey was also conducted by the Dhanbad Municipal Corporation in 2017 as per which identity cards were provided to around 3978 street vendors but a large majority of the street vendors were left out in the survey and the cards provided then also contained several factual errors.

“The QR based smart identity card as well as QR based Smart Certificate of vending will also shield them against any harassment by police or administration or even the civic body or any other authority in name of any anti encroachment drive,” said Chandrashekhar.

He added that during the survey being conducted for over a fortnight at different places like Railway station road, Big Bazar, SSLNT, Digwadih, Jharia, Loco Bazar and Police Line Hirapur, they have already collected data of over 1000 street vendors.

The QR based Smart Identity Card and QR based Smart Certificate of vending will also serve as a document for the street vendors to get loans from the banks under the different welfare schemes meant for street vendors.

Sneham Sinha, district coordinator of National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) who is also coordinating with clusters resource persons of Dhanbad Municipal Corporation in the ongoing survey for smart card said, “The survey during which the Aadhar Card or Ration Card or Voter Id Card of the street vendors is being taken as proof is likely to completed in a month and will help to provide Identity to all such street vendors of the district who were left previous survey of 2017.”

“We are also collecting documents and data of such street vendors during the survey who have received the loan worth Rs 10,000 under the PM Street Vendor’s Atma Nirbhar Nidhi Yojna so that they can provide further loan of Rs 20,000,” said Sinha.