The eastern areas of Andheri and Jogeshwari ward will have the highest number of hawking pitches in the city: 8,020.
Mumbai: In a final step towards finalising hawking zones in the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has invited applications from other representative categories to fill up the vacant posts in Town Vending Committee (TVC), which will scrutinise people’s suggestions and objections about proposed hawking pitches that have been demarcated by the civic body.
According to the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regu-lation of Street Vending) Act 2017, the State government has asked the BMC to form a TVC, which will consist of members from hawkers' association, non-government organisations and community based organisations, resident welfare associations, traders associations and markets associations.
“While hawker’s representatives have been named, members from non-government organisations and community based organisations (4 posts), resident welfare associations (10), traders associations (2) and markets associations (5) are yet to be appointed. We have invited applications from the respective categories for this,” said a senior civic official.
The main criteria for the selection of these organisations is that they should be registered with a competent authority in their field, should not be blacklisted and they should have minimum five years of experience of working in their field.
The BMC has identified 85,891 hawking pitches across the city and sought public feedback on them. However, the civic body received only 1,660 suggestion and objections from citizens, activists and other NGOs.
Nikhil Desai, a social activist and a resident of Matunga, said that the TVC should examine the proposed hawking zones list very carefully before finalising it. “In Matunga, the BMC has earmarked 57 hawking pitches on Lotlikar Marg, which is a residential area. Similarly, the Singhani road, which has two educational institutions -Indian Chemical Technology (ICT) College and Don Bosco School -, has 99 hawkers. On what basis, the hawking pitches have been marked there?” he asked.
