Gurugram’s municipal corporation committee to resolve street vendor issues soon

In a first, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) has formed a three-member committee to address and resolve issues pertaining to street vendors across the city, said the officials on Thursday.

The development comes just two weeks after the Punjab and Haryana high court directed the MCG to form a district-level committee for the street vendors in Gurugram.

The three members — a retired civil judge, deputy municipal commissioner, and a social worker — will have a tenure of two years to attend to the street vendors’ disputes through the redressal committee in the district. All the three members took charge on Monday, said the officials.

There are at least 1,700 street vendors at 148 street vending zones under the jurisdiction of the Gururgam civic body. According to the estimates of the MCG, there are around 18,000 street vendors across the city.

“Street vendors are an integral part of the city, both in regards to urban planning and in contribution to the economy. The committee will not only safeguard the interests of all the street vendors across the city, but also assist them in becoming a part of the MCG’s street vending zone,” said Sarika Panda Bhatt, a social worker and one of the members of MCG committee.

The civic body’s first street vending zone opened at Sector 32, opposite Medanta Hospital, in November 2016. Since then, the MCG’s street vending project has been a major point of controversy.

Last year, the MCG found that their street vending zones were operating at only 53% of the intended capacity. Further, at least 300 of the street vendors were operating illegally as their original owners had either leased the carts to others or transferred the ownership to them, violating the civic body’s street vending policy. In addition, there were also instances of street vendors paying 1,000 to the MCG’s contractors individually, even though the contractors’ tenure had ended.

Until 2020, each street vendor had to pay ₹1,500 per month to be a part of the MCG’s street vending zone, of which 1,000 was paid to one of the three contractors, and 500 to the MCG.

According to the officials of National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI), the MCG last year relocated the street vendors from their vending zone located in sector 14 market to Sector 18. The assigned area is not commercially viable and sees absolutely no footfall during the day, they said.

“Street vendors from the Sector 14 market had approached NASVI on the issue, and we approached the High Court on their behalf,” said Arbind Singh, national coordinator of NASVI.

As per MCG officials, earlier this month, the high court directed the civic body to form a committee to solve such issues themselves instead of the matter needing the court’s intervention.