During its hawker survey last year, the corporation found around 2,000 street vendors running their stalls on others’ licences. PMC’s antiencroachment department has now fixed Rs 25,000 to Rs 1 lakh as transfer fees. The civic body can also release registration certificates to existing hawkers rather than owners, who have a licence but are not running stalls. At present, vendors don’t get registration certificates as there is no provision of transfer of rights.
Speaking to Mirror, Madhav Jagtap, assistant commissioner of the anti-encroachment department, said, “In 1973, PMC issued licences to hawkers to run their businesses in various parts of the city. At that time, numbers were almost 6,000.After that, the corporation stopped issuing licences. The hawker survey revealed that almost 30 per cent hawkers sell or rent out their licences to others, which is illegal. Now, we have created a legal way of transferring rights by paying a fee to the corporation. It helps us to curb duplication of ownership.“
Rates of hawker licences differ from place to place according to the market. At Tulshibaug, rates are almost Rs 10 lakh, while they go up to Rs 20 lakh at Hong Kong Lane in Deccan Gymkhana. Balasaheb More, secretary of the Hawkers Association of Pune District, said, “It is a welcome move by the corporation over a long-pending issue. There are some cases where owners are taking rent from tenants, who are actually running their business. Now, such tenants will get relief.“
Source : Pune Mirror
