A vending zone in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Dec. 31: The municipal corporation has constituted a committee for smooth functioning of vending zones and street vendors.

The town vending committee was constituted on December 28 according to the Odisha Urban Street Vendors policy, which was formulated in April.

The municipal commissioner will be the chairman of the 26-member committee. It includes 10 civic body councillors, three representatives from the street vendors’ association, one nominee of police and two nominees of resident welfares associations.

The committee will have a monthly meet to discuss various issues regarding street vending. It will demarcate free vending zones, restricted vending zones and no vending zones, apart from ensuring proper registration and issuance of identity cards to the vendors.

“Development works often face the hurdles of relocation and rehabilitation of vendors as it is a time-consuming process. The committee will ensure proper rehabilitation of the affected vendors,” said a corporation official.

Sources said the civic body had started a survey to find out the number of vendors in the city few months ago. Nearly 2,200 street vendors of 22,000 have been rehabilitated in 56 vending zones across the city.

Four vending zones near Power House Square, Rajmahal Square, Sishu Bhavan Square and Jayadev Vihar are not functioning because of various development works, including road expansion and construction.

“The vendors doing business in those four vending zones are yet to be rehabilitated. With the panel’s help, we can rehabilitate them. The panel will also deal with the traffic chaos caused by vendors,” said president of the All Odisha Road Side Vendors’ Association Pratap Sahu.

The municipal authorities in consultations with the committee will undertake a comprehensive and digitalised photo census with the assistance of experts. The vendors will be provided with vendors’ registration cards, which will have one’s code number and details such as name, address and photograph.