More than 4,000 street vendors here have a reason to cheer in the time of lockdown. Dhanbad Municipal Corporation will provide them passes to sell vegetables, groceries and other essentials.

The passes will be issued only to vendors who are willing to work as vegetable/fruit sellers and have necessary gear such as carts to carry their wares.

The project in-charge of National Urban Livelihood Mission, Santosh Singh, said: “Though we were thinking of engaging registered street vendors as delivery boys or giving them passes to operate in different localities to sell vegetables, fruits and groceries, we recently received a notice from the state urban development department instructing us to issue passes to the street vendors to help them carry out their work by following social distancing norms and also by regularly sanitising their carts.”

Singh added: “We have 3,978 registered street vendors in the DMC area out of which many are already working as vegetable sellers but we will provide fresh passes to around 1,200 street vendors to operate during the lockdown so that they have work and also help maintain social distancing of buyers.

“We will complete the process of allotment of passes to around 1,100-1,200 vendors within a day or two. But many vendors may not be comfortable selling vegetables and groceries,” said Singh.

Sneham Sinha, the Dhanbad manager of National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI), a national-level NGO working for street vendors, said: “Since the beginning of the lockdown, we have been advocating for street vendors to also work as delivery boys because several states, including Bihar, have already allowed street vendors to operate and it’s been more than a month now.

“Allowing street vendors to work as delivery boys and also allowing them to sell vegetables will help solve two problems. First, the street vendors will reach out to every locality carrying essentials and people will not need to venture out. Second, the financial problem of the street vendors will be solved,” said Sinha, adding that their organisation is working in Dhanbad for the past few months on organising the street vendors and apprising them about the provisions of the National Urban Livelihood Mission.

Bekar Bandh resident Sanjeev Singh, who used to sell books and magazines on Station Road and has had no work since the lockdown, said: “This step of the government will help a lot of people because all street vendors don’t have BPL cards therefore hey don’t get two months’ ration. Many were in dire straits.”