With State’s biggest Urban local Body (UlB) gearing up to conduct vendors’ committee election in June second week for formation of first Town Vending Committee, the members of Ranchi Footpath Hawkers Association covering quite a number of street vendors appear reluctant to take part in the upcoming election. Notably, as per the rule, allocation of shops to street vendors at the vendors market is done on the recommendation of the elected representatives of Town Vending Committee.
As per the recent decision of the Municipal Corporation, polling will be conducted on June 13 for inducting 12 eligible members from street vendors’ community. Over 30 members will be in the RMC Town Vending Committee which includes government representatives, experts and RMC officials.
Ranchi Footpath Hawkers Association, Secretary, Anita Das on May 18 said that Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) must endow ‘Vendor Certificates’ to each registered vendor before going for the election following the rules. Also, according to the Secretary, survey that was initiated way back in 2016 by a private agency ‘Samman Foundation’ is yet to cover major chunk of vendors’ population.
“Despite of making Corporation’s top officials familiar about the rules and regulations, none of them had ever taken the matter seriously. Only on the basis of survey, one cannot conduct election. The whole process of polling will be illegal as nobody will be familiar who the eligible voters are, if ‘Vendors’ Certificate’ is not provided. ‘Vendors’ certificate’ is just like voter ID cards,” said Anita Das.
“We are not against the election but we want election to be held following the regulations. During registration time, the association had cooperated with civic body officials. Over, 1500 registrations were done through us,” said Das who recently on May 14 had filed a petition on behalf of Ranchi Footpath Hawkers Association over the vendors’ committee issue. The hearing of the case has been scheduled on June 11.
Meanwhile, the Jharkhand High Court’s prodding for settling down the street vendors at a permanent place has compelled the Municipal Corporation to act steadily. Also, conflict between Municipal Corporation and Ranchi Footpath Hawkers Association during registration and distribution of Identity (ID) cards among vendors have induced the authorities to conduct election at the earliest considering the status of civil construction work of ‘Vendors Complex’ at Jaipal Singh Stadium which is likely to get completed by December 2018.
Presently, street vendors are scattered around all major routes while regardless of several attempts in the past, the civic body officials had failed miserably in convincing the street vendors to put their stalls at the five identified spots (Harmu Ground, Dhurwa Ground, Zila School – Shaheed Chowk etc) until the mega structure at Jaipal Singh Stadium gets ready.
Terming the claims of members of Ranchi Footpath Hawkers Association merely a pre-planned conspiracy to further deter the election procedure to fulfill certain political aspirations, Deputy Mayor, Sanjiv Vijayawargia said, “All rules will be taken care during the election. Also, whatever activities are being taken up for social upliftment of the street vendors’ is based on regulations as mentioned in the National Policy on Urban Street Vendors.”
“Until election is not conducted such problems will keep arising. Once the election gets over, further amendment can be done. All those who are objecting have their own aspirations. Their intention is to play pity politics sidelining street vendors’ basic interest,” added Vijayawargia. The Deputy Mayor had recently written to Municipal Commissioner to alter the dates of Vendors’ Committee election in view of the upcoming EID festivity.
A consolidated report of Department of Urban Development, Housing and Planning suggests that nearly 28 UlBs have been covered in the survey registering 27,779 street vendors. From Ranchi, 5901 vendors have been covered. Survey in 18 UlBs is going on. As per the instructions of the Urban Development Department, all 44 UlBs must complete the survey task at the earliest for creation of vending zones at their respective UlBs. Nearly 12 vending zones have been identified within the State Capital. Financial Assistance of Rs. 58 lakh has been given to the State government to form vending zones by the Government of India.