New DP will consider hawking zones: Kunte

After the mass eviction drive against hawkers last month, the BMC in its budget for the next fiscal year has committed to defining spaces for hawkers in its 2014-2024 Development Plan (DP).

"The requirement of hawking zones will be considered at the time of framing the new Development Plan," said municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte in his budget speech on Monday.

"The DP is the only long-term solution to the hawkers issues of livelihood. The current arbitrary evictions offer a narrow and exclusionary solution to the structural problem of the informal sector which accounts for 70 per cent of all employment in Mumbai," said architect and urban planner Arvind Unni of YUVA, an NGO that conducted a survey of the vendors along with Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in 1998.

Unni said if hawkers are to be considered while preparing the new DP, the existing land use (ELU) survey, which is currently under scrutiny, must map present hawking areas and natural markets. Another survey should record and recognise the hawker population. "It is only after this that regularisation and consequent rehabilitation of hawkers can be carried out in the future with adequate demarcation of markets and hawking areas in the upcoming DP," he said.

On Monday, Newsline reported that the BMC was considering rehabilitating displaced hawkers in its vacant municipal markets. To begin rehabilitation however, an approval of the National Hawkers' policy at the Centre is necessary to mark hawking zones defined under the accommodation reservation policy.

"As many as 75 municipal markets are under this policy. It has been proposed to allot gallas in these markets to enable hawkers, vendors, and educated unemployed to get market places at reasonable rates," said Kunte.

He added that the BMC is urging the state government to amend section 313 of the BMC Act that pertains to licensing of hawkers.

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