Hawkers who have set up stalls on pavements but did not apply for a hawker’s licence in 2015 could face an inquiry by the city’s town vending committee about how old the stall is, the committee members decided on Friday.
If it is found that the stall is “very recent”, the hawker may be asked to leave, said a hawker leader and member of the committee.
The 2015 cut-off will not be applicable to hawkers in Gariahat, New Market and Hatibagan since a survey to identify hawkers was conducted in the three shopping hubs in 2022.
In the rest of the city, no survey has been done. The only way for the authorities —Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) — to know whether a hawker is new or old is to see whether the hawker had applied for a licence in 2015. The KMC had in 2015 asked hawkers to apply for a licence.
A probe will be ordered if there is any complaint that a stall was set up recently.
The town vending committee has been empowered by The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, to take decisions on accommodation of hawkers in a vending zone “subject to a norm conforming to two-and-half per cent of the population of the ward or zone town or city (the number of hawkers in a ward or city cannot exceed 2.5 per cent of the population)”.
The committee has the power to grant vending certificates to hawkers and also to penalise them in case they do not follow rules. The committee is made of hawkers, elected representatives, government officials and police, among others.
“If someone had applied for a licence in 2015, it means the hawker was around at that time. But if a hawker had not applied in 2015 and someone complains that the hawker has set up a stall recently, the matter will be placed before the town vending committee,” said Debashis Kumar, mayoral council member of the KMC in charge of parks and squares.
Kumar is also co-chairman of Kolkata’s town vending committee.
The committee will then enquire how old the stall is, said Shaktiman Ghosh, hawker leader and member of the vending committee. “If it is found that a stall is very recent, say, set up three or four months ago, the committee may even ask the hawker to leave the space,” said Ghosh. The KMC, he said, failed to complete the survey of stalls across the city, which is mandatory. The 2014 act says a survey must be held once every five years.
The act says if “in the intervening period between two surveys, any person seeks to vend, the Town Vending Committee may grant a certificate of vending to such person, subject to the scheme, the plan for street vending and the holding capacity of the vending zones”.
The committee on Thursday also agreed that no hawker can sit on a road and all such hawkers have to be relocated.