Udupi street vendors demand vending zones in city

Mangalore Today News Network

Udupi, Nov 07, 2016: It is reported that members of the district unit of the Street Vendors’ Association, affiliated to the CITU, Centre of Indian Trade Unions, took out a procession and staged a dharna in front of the CMC, city municipal council office here recently, demanding vending zones to sell their products.

Addressing the protesters, Sunil Kumar Bajal, organising secretary of the State unit of the CITU, said that street vendors sold products at low prices aimed at the common people.
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There were about 250 to 300 street vendors, petty shop owners, and pushcart sellers in Udupi city.

They sold vegetables, clothes, ice cream, tea, coffee, snacks, toys, flowers, plastic items and other essential commodities.

As these street vendors faced a lot of problems from the authorities and lost their goods, whenever there were raids, as per the directions of the courts, Parliament passed the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 2014 to protect them.

The Udupi CMC should not act unilaterally and seize the goods of the street vendors on the pretext that they were obstructing movement of traffic.  Instead, it was incumbent on the CMC to first create vending zones in public places.

The CMC should carry out a survey of the street vendors in the city in a transparent manner. All street vendors should be given a certificate on the basis of this survey. These certificates should be renewed periodically.  It was incumbent upon the CMC to set up Town Vending Committee comprising representatives of the CMC, police, vendor’s association as per the Street Vendors Act, 2014.

Presently, the personnel of the CMC were conducting surprise raids on the vendors without any notice on the pretext that they were obstructing traffic. During such raids, the personnel of the CMC confiscated not just the pushcarts but also the wares/products on them.

These products were then destroyed by the CMC personnel. Sometimes, the CMC personnel also assaulted the street vendors. The CMC should stop such illegal acts. The CMC personnel had confiscated three pushcarts, measuring instruments, and fruits worth Rs. 10,000 from three pushcart owners on October 20.

The CMC should return the pushcarts, measuring instruments and the products confiscated by them.  It should help the certified street vendors to get loans from the Mudra Banks.  Bajal said.

Veeresh, president of the district unit of the association; Basavaraj, secretary; Sangamesh, P. Vishwanath Rai, Umesh K., and Nalini S., leaders, were present.