Chennai: Disgruntled vendors on NSC Bose Road have made it clear that they are not willing to let go of their space until the Town Vending Committee is constituted by Chennai Corporation.
In October, the Madras High Court issued fresh directions to the local body and the traffic police asking them to remove encroachers from NSC Bose Road so that it could be maintained as a ‘no hawking zone’, after citing a 1995 SC ruling in this regard.
However, vendors told DC that the High Court was interfering with the stipulations of Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, which protects hawkers from eviction and enables only a town vending committee to decide on hawkers’ right of living.
“Why has the Town Vending Committee not been constituted? Rather than looking at this issue as a law and order or traffic problem, the authorities and the courts should consider this as a social issue. Because vendor numbers will increase so long as there are unemployment issues,” said B. Karunanidhi, general secretary, Chennai metropolitan small vendors’ federation.
Savithri and Vijaya, who have been vending fruits, flowers and other perishable commodities at the same spot near the Flower Bazaar police station for over two decades, said the argument that the existing vendors are ‘encroachers’ was wrong. “When the SC verdict was passed, 794 licensed hawkers were shifted to alternate locations. Another 698 hawkers, who were unlicensed, but selling their goods there were left behind,” said Savithri.
“We had approached M.K. Stalin, the then mayor of Chennai, and he promised to find an amicable solution. We have legal records to prove that these vendors are not new as is being claimed by the petitioner,” Karunanidhi said, referring to ‘Traffic’ K.R. Ramaswamy.
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