Hawkers in the city will have a more organised identity in the coming months as the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) sets about registering them and designating space to them in line with the National Policy on Urban Street Vendors, 2009, across the city.
The registration process will begin from March 1. On Thursday, Municipal Commissioner called a meeting with the Town Vending Committee to discuss fees, biometric registration process, implementation of the Policy, and action to be taken against illegal hawkers, among other issues. Additional Municipal Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, Anti-encroachment department, and representative of the hawker’s organisation were present at the meeting.
They have decided on the cost of biometric registration in the meeting. They are going to start the registration process from Monday. As per the orders, they have informed hawkers to make their stalls or sitting arrangements according to the standard size of 1 square metre latest by March 31. Action will be taken against those who don’t comply. Notices will be sent to the defaulting stall owners and a fine of Rs 1,000 will be levied within 24 hours. If the hawkers still ignore the directive, the fine will be raised to Rs 5,000 and so on.
If any hawker is caught in a no hawker’s zone, s/he will be fined Rs 5,000. If s/he is caught again, the registration will be cancelled.
Representative of hawkers in the Town Vending Committee and also general secretary of the Pathari Viysahik Sanghatana, Pune District, said that the corporation has ayed Rs 500 as the cost of biometric registration. Earlier, they had suggested Rs 600. They have registered a strong objection against the fee structure according to groups of city areas like A, A+, B and C. It starts at Rs 25 per day and goes up to Rs 200. Apart from this, the PMC will give a green signal to start businesses in 45 no-hawking zones provided the traffic police department gives a No Objection Certificate.
There are 18,000 authorised and unauthorised street vendors. The online system has three phases: the first phase includes on-field data collection; the second involves in-office document verification and collection of data. The smart card will be issued in the final phase.
On September 9, 2013, Supreme Court Judge had issued an order on the appeal of Maharashtra Ekta Hawkers Union of Mumbai that stated that the process of registration should be completed by municipal authorities across the country within four months of the receipt of the direction by chief secretaries of states and administrators of union territories. Following the State government directives, PMC conducted a survey, formed the Town Vending Committee on October 21, 2013 and initiated survey of vendors.
Source: timesofindia,Feb’14
