Surveying vendors only after monsoon

However, the corporation’s current priority is rain related relief work and would be so until the end of monsoon season, an official told DC.

The survey of street vendors is crucial as two of the heavily congested areas in the city, due to unregulated street vending – T Nagar and George Town – figure among the civic body’s options for Smart Cities proposal.

T.S. Jamaal, secretary of the Chennai Small Vendors Federation, said the city could have as many as 50,000 street vendors. “There are vendors who have been affected by constant displacement and evictions since this city once again had a Mayor from 1996,” Jamaal said, alluding to M.K. Stalin’s period.

R. Geetha of the Unorganised Worker’s Federation said the local body should have surveyed vendors when the National Policy on Street Vendors was introduced a decade ago. “When the Act was passed, the Supreme Court made it a point to order all local authorities to not evict any street vendor until the respective state government notifies it. It was a blanket ban but then we had corporation authorities evicting vendors from N.S.C. Bose Road,” she said.

A senior government official told DC the implementation of the Act would put the right of pedestrians and residents over vendors. “The intention is to find a balance between right of life and livelihood. We will adopt a scientific approach to reach a solution and minimise conflict,” the official said.