Nagpur: Hundreds of hawkers under the banner of Nagpur Zilla Path Vikreta Sangh took out a morcha and submitted a memorandum to Mayor Sandeep Joshi demanding staying of election to footpath vendors’ body. The Mayor subsequently called a meeting of concerned officials and assured the hawkers of a positive decision.
The morcha was led by Jammu Anand. According to Anand, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has recently filed a petition regarding Sitabuldi footpath hawkers. “The July 16, 2019 affidavit is full of anomalies and violation of Footpath Vendors Act 2014. The day the affidavit was filed in the High Court, thje court had observed that it is injustice to the hawkers. The NMC move has triggered panic among hawkers,” Anand said.
“The High Court, in 2017, while passing an order had observed that the city where City Hawking Committee was formed after May 1, 2014, the survey done on city hawkers should be considered as survey in accordance with Section 3(1) of the Act. However, the NMC affidavit says that the first survey was done on December 8, 2014. The same affidavit further said that registration of remaining 27,000 hawkers would be done. But a list of only 3200 hawkers has been handed over to the election officer. If the survey had included 33700 hawkers then how such a list of less number of hawkers was prepared? It means the orders of High Court have been violated.
The NMC has also claimed that a temporary list of hawkers was published on August 5, 2019 and objections and suggestions were sought till August 21, 2019. The final list was published on September 10, 2019. Hawkers were not taken into confidence during the entire process. Names of 33702 hawkers who were enlisted in the May 1, 2014 survey are missing from voters list,” Anand claimed.
According to Anand, the NMC affidavit says that the City Hawking Committee had held meetings on July 21, 2017, February 14, 2018 and June 30, 2018 and a decision to implement Footpath Vendors Act. The decisions taken in all the three meetings were illegal. Election of total 20 members of City Hawking Committee is to be held out of which five would be government designated officials, 7 nominated members from different mandals and 8 representatives of footpath hawkers.
