Context :
BMC
to decide on number of legal hawkers this week……………… HT / 23
Oct 2023
Extract :
The fate of the city’s hawkers is set to be
sealed this week. The BMC, based on the objections and suggestions received
from hawkers’ unions and civil society, will give a final decision on how many
among them will get licenses to operate.
According to the BMC’s published list released
on July 17, there are only 32,000 verified street vendors. This list was
finalised after the civic body’s town vending committee under the chairmanship
of civic chief I S Chahal held a meeting on May 3 attended by civic officials,
hawkers’ unions and members of civil society. Following the release of the
list, the BMC had asked all stakeholders to submit their objections and
suggestions.
Upset by the low number, hawkers’ unions have
demanded a fresh survey to include more hawkers. NGOs like NAGAR representing
pedestrians disagree on conducting a new survey though they agree that the
BMC’s verified number of 32,000 hawkers is low. The eight unions—Maharashtra Ekta
Hawkers’ Union, Mumbai Hawkers’ Union, Azad Hawkers’ Union, Jai Hindustan
Hawkers’ Union, Ekta Hawkers’ Union, AITUC Hawkers’ union and two others—have
given a written representation for a re-survey, in the absence of which, they
aver, it remains a mock exercise, benefitting neither the city nor hawkers
According to Shashank Rao, president
of the Mumbai Hawkers’ Union, the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and
Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 states that 2.5 percent of the
population can be accommodated as legal hawkers. “That would be approximately
300,000-plus hawkers,” he said. “But they are legalising only 32,000 hawkers,
which is inclusive of the earlier legal 10,000 hawkers. So in reality, only
22,000 hawkers will get new licenses.”
Rao claimed the BMC’s decision was
“bogus, fooling both the public and hawkers”. “The BMC has no real intention of
legalising more hawkers, as this move will stop their system of collecting
‘haftas’,” he alleged. “But it needs to pay attention to the objective of the
Act—to regularise more hawkers—otherwise it will not resolve the issue of
illegal hawkers spilling onto roads and pavements.”
Vidya Vaidya of NAGAR, who is also a
part of the town vending committee, said there was a period for suggestions and
objections, where the hawkers could have put in their claims. “Their whole idea
is just to increase the numbers,” she said.
When asked about the unions’
contention that 2.5 percent of the population should be accommodated as hawkers
as per the Act, Vaidya said, “For a city like Mumbai, 2.5 percent of the
population is not the correct figure. The 2.5 percent applied to cities like
Delhi or Pune cannot be applied to Mumbai. We have long ago put in a suggestion
to take into consideration the holding capacity of the city as against what
pedestrians need. The holding capacity of the footpath may be 20 hawkers but if
the 20 hawkers do not leave any space for pedestrians to walk, then it makes no
sense.”
Vaidya cited the example of Hill Road
in Bandra West where footpaths, roads and society premises have been completely
taken over by hawkers. “The wide road looks miniscule because of this,” she
said. “It is a place where accidents are waiting to happen, where people are
spilling out and BEST buses are not able to ply. So the holding capacity of a
city and taking care of pedestrians’ needs in every city is a must.”
Vaidya, however, agreed with the
hawker unions on one point: that 32,000 legal hawkers was too low. “It’s not a
realistic number,” she said. “But the actual number is for the BMC to ascertain
in coordination with BEST. The BMC had promised that it would take all
suggestions and objections from hawkers and correct the list wherever it was
wrong. I don’t know the present status of that correction and exercise. The
Labour Commission was supposed to do all this.”
Rao said that the BMC needed to junk the
existing town vending committee and form a new “expert panel” with IAS
officials, town planners, hawkers’ unions, legal experts and citizens’
representatives to arrive at a final decision. Vaidya objected to this. “A
survey again just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “What other new parameters are
going to be put in place?”
My Take :
*Apply
for Self – Employment ( * conditions apply )……07 May 2023
Rejoice , You , Self - Employed ! ………….. ……………… .....15 May 2016
A NEW ECONOMIC ORDER ? aka " Start Up Act - 2015 " …12 Sept 2015
Thank You, Shri
Sanjog Kabare ……………………………….
22 Sept 2022
Eke Out a Living
( aka, “ Papi Pet ke Khatir “ ) ………… 01 May 2022
Fresher need not
apply ? ……. ………………………………………09 Sept 2020
Hemen Parekh
www.hemenparekh.ai / 24
Oct 2023
PM SVANidhi Scheme is a gender equaliser: SBI report
Till date around 70 lakh loans disbursed in all three tranches (1st: up to ₹10,000; 2nd: up to ₹20,000; and 3rd: up to ₹50,000), benefiting over 53 lakh street vendors, with a total value exceeding ₹9,100 crore, the ERD said in its special report.
The ratio of people repaying the first loan of ₹10,000 and taking the second loan of ₹20,000 loan is 68 per cent. The ratio of people repaying second loan of ₹20,000 and taking the third loan of ₹50,000 loan is 75 per cent, per the ERD’s assessment.
The average debit card spending of PM SVANidhi account holders increased by 50 per cent to about ₹80,000 in FY23 as compared to FY21. It means that in just 2 years average spending per annum increased by about ₹28,000, with a rather small amount of seed capital infused to informal urban entrepreneurs.
Under the scheme, regular repayments are incentivized with a 7 per cent interest subsidy, and digital transactions are rewarded with cashback up to ₹1,200 per year.
As per PM SVANidhi dashboard, around 5.9 lakh borrowers are in 6 mega cities and 7.8 lakh borrowers come from the top 10 million+ population cities.
Till date around 70 lakh loans have been disbursed in all three tranches, benefiting over 53 lakh street vendors, with a total value exceeding ₹9,100 crore.
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