The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has started inviting applications from hawkers who want vending certificates, a document that ensures hawkers the right to street vending but within certain rules.
KMC officials said once the certificates are distributed, the hawkers will be bound by rules framed for them, violation of which can lead to cancellation of the vending certificates and the hawker may be asked to vacate the pavement.
The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 2014, a central legislation applicable across India, has empowered the municipal corporation of a city to evict a hawker whose vending certificate has been cancelled.
The town vending committee, which is made up of hawkers, elected representatives, government officials, NGOs and police, among others, has the power to cancel the vending certificate if a hawker breaches any rule.
The committee has been empowered by The Street Vendors Act to provide vending certificates as well as take action against hawkers who breach the rules.
"We have already given certificates to nineteen hawkers and more will get certificates soon," said an official.
While the Act is a central legislation, the rules are framed by each state. Some of the rules framed by the Bengal government say that hawkers can set up their stalls within one-third width of a pavement and leave two-thirds width of a pavement free for pedestrians. The rules also say that no stall can be set up on a road and no portion of a stall can encroach on a road; no stall can be set up facing a road and plastic sheets, which are flammable, cannot be used in a stall.
About 59,000 hawkers had applied for licenses when the KMC invited applications in 2015. The process did not move beyond the submission of applications. After the Street Vendors Act came into effect, it became mandatory for local authorities to hand over vending certificates to hawkers.
A KMC official said that vending certificates are likely to be handed to 59,000 applicants from 2015 before new applicants are given the certificates.
Debashis Das, a hawker leader and a member of the town vending committee, said that those among the ones who had applied in 2015, will have to apply again to obtain the vending certificates.