 |
| A roadside shop being demolished in Cuttack. Picture by Badrika Nath Das |
Cuttack, July 10: Khyudra Utha Dokani Mahasangha (KUDM) has decided to launch an agitation for the creation of vending zones in the city, bringing back in focus the issue of giving an alternative location to shopkeepers before evicting them from a particular location.
The decision by KUDM follows the eviction of hawkers and vendors during clearance of roadside encroachments by the city police as part of a weeklong drive last month to address the problem of traffic congestion. KUDM has been spearheading the cause of 20,000 street vendors and hawkers in the city.
“We will start with a demonstration before the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) headquarters on July 14 to protest against the eviction operations without any option for rehabilitation. We will follow it up with an agitation if nothing tangible follows within a month,” said KUDM president Subash Singh.
“The livelihood of nearly 700 families was adversely affected by the eviction of hawkers and vendors from the roads,” he said.
“Though the process of identification of land for creation of 18 vending zones in the city had been completed during a visit by the state Assembly House Committee in October 2009, the Cuttack Municipal Corporation has not been able to come up with even one vending zone till date,” Singh said. “The foundation stone of a vending zone was laid in Jobra area on August 31, 2010. But nothing followed that,” he added.
Mayor Saumendra Ghosh said there was no need for the KUDM to agitate as all formalities have been completed for two vending zones. “The civic infrastructure construction and maintenance department of CMC will take up the construction work soon near the Mahanadi Barrage Chakh at Jobra and near the S.C.B. Medical College and Hospital at Manglabag,” Ghosh told The Telegraph today.
But KUDM working president Jayadev Jena said: “There is nothing new about such assurances by the mayor. In January 2010, he had assured at a meeting of city vendors that four of the proposed 18 vending zones will be opened in the first phase within a month.”
However, the mayor said: “We are going to implement the National Policy for Urban Street Vendors. But proceeding with 16 of the proposed vending zones has not been possible as the concerned departments had not transferred the land to CMC.”
“The state government had decided to implement the National Policy for Urban Street Vendors but the state cabinet did not approve it,” said Singh, who is the coordinator of Orissa Committee of National Association of Street Vendors of India.
The policy envisages setting up of town vending committees with representatives of street vendors and other stakeholders for the purpose of regulating street vending.
The policy further envisages registration of street vendors with identity cards instead of the existing licensing policy and allocation of space to them by ward committees on the basis of the decision of the town vending committee.
In the policy document, the term urban vendor is inclusive of both traders and service providers, stationary as well as mobile vendors and incorporates all other local or region-specific terms used to describe them, such as hawker, pheriwalla, rehri-patri wallaa, footpath dukandars, sidewalk traders, etc.