The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has published a list of 59,086 hawkers who will be given vending certificates, a licence to sell their wares from the footpath.
Each stall will be assigned an identification number.
This is only the first list. A survey would be undertaken to identify more hawkers so they can be given vending certificates, too. According to a rough estimate of a hawker union, there are 2.75 lakh hawkers in Kolkata and Salt Lake combined.
The identification of hawkers and providing them certificates of vending was mandated by the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014.
The Act was framed after protests from hawkers across the country who alleged harassment by police and others and demanded some security to earn their livelihoods. The Act asked the state governments to frame their own rules factoring in local realities.
While the issuing of vending certificates will provide security to hawkers, it remains to be seen whether the authorities execute the conditions that the Act and the Rules impose on hawkers. Some of these are:
- two-thirds width of any pavement should be free for pedestrians
- no hawking on a road
- entry and exit of any shop or house cannot be blocked
- no use of fire in the stall
- no use of tarpaulin sheets or inflammable materials the vending certificate can be repealed if a hawker is found to be in breach of the conditions
Across Kolkata, hawkers have taken up more than half of the width of pavement. There are stalls on both sides of the footpath, leaving only a narrow passage for pedestrians. Tarpaulin sheets are used as overhead covers in almost all stalls. The Telegraph recently reported how hawkers have set up stalls on the thoroughfare in Gariahat.
The Rules allow the vending committee to declare an area a no-vending zone where no hawker is allowed. It also empowers the committee to decide the holding capacity of a vending zone in consultation with the KMC, which means they can put a cap on the number of hawkers in the zone.
Shaktiman Ghosh, a hawker leader, said that once the vending certificates are given, it will become easier to implement the law.
“The vending certificates will give the hawkers the confidence that they will not be evicted suddenly. It is only after they are assured of their income that we can force them to follow the rules,” said Ghosh, the general secretary of Hawker Sangram Committee.
“In a recent meeting with Kolkata’s mayor, I said that all hawkers should be moved at least 50 metres from 58 major crossings in the city. The crossings should be free for pedestrians. Now it is upto the administration to implement it.”
The hawkers who will be given vending certificates in the first phase are the ones who had applied to the KMC in 2015, following an announcement by the government that it would hand over licenses to hawkers in the city.
“Following their application, the police conducted a survey to identify the stalls. We have now finalised the list. We will soon decide the date from when we will start distributing the vending certificates,” said Debashis Kumar, a mayoral council member and member of the vending committee of Kolkata.
The vending committee includes hawker unions, elected representatives, commissioner of KMC, police and community-based organisations. It is the body that will take all decisions related to hawkers in the Kolkata municipal area. Similar committees have to be formed under all muni-cipal corporations and municipalities.
“Hawkers who did not apply then will also be identified through a survey that will be conducted soon,” Kumar said.
The delay of eight years — between the framing of the Act and the beginning of the survey to identify more hawkers — means that more hawkers have taken over the pavements during this window.
Though the Act and the subsequent Rules do not prevent any new hawker from doing business from the pavement, they say that a new hawker can start doing business only after obtaining a vending certificate.