NEW DELHI: East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) on Friday issued an order to start preparations for drafting a street vending plan.
This includes formation of town vending committees and beginning the process of identifying locations in all wards for stationing vendors who have been issued a certificate of vending in the first phase based on the survey done till December 7 on Delhi government’s direction.
“It is hereby directed to constitute committees each for Shahdara south and north zones for preparing a draft plan for street vending under Section 21 of Street Vendors Act, 2014. The zonal deputy commissioner is the head of the committee and has members from the EDMC town planning department, Delhi Police, DDA, SDMs, market traders’ associations and RWAs,” stated the order issued by the central licensing and enforcement cell.
EDMC has planned to allow vendors in shifts in busy commercial areas. “A plan has been made to place food vendors in open and vacant plots of DSIIDC or corporations near industrial and commercial areas,” said the EDMC official.
An EDMC official said though the draft vending plans would be finalised after the elections of the new vending committee members were completed, the Act allowed the departments to initiate the exercise and identify spots.
Each committee has 50% members from different departments, while the rest include elected members/vendors. “The exercise is aimed at saving time as elections will take 4-5 months,” said the official. EDMC has identified 19,653 vendors and issued certificates to around 16,000.
“The report of the committee will be approved by the commissioner before submission to the government for notification,” the order stated.
South Delhi Municipal Corporation will take a similar decision next week. It has issued vending certificates to around 19,500 vendors. “There are certain sites that are fixed for the vendors, including markets. The responsibility of the new committee will be to ensure that they are placed at a safe distance in appropriate numbers to avoid congestion,” said an SDMC official.
The survey by the town vending committees to identify street vendors began in January and concluded on September 30. The date was later extended to December 7. In all, 71,371 vendors were identified.
