Chandigarh: New vending zones to come up at sites with higher footfall
Chandigarh adviser Dharam Pal on Thursday directed the municipal corporation to examine and work on creating alternative sites for vending zones
To maximise earning potential of street vendors, more vending sites will be created at locations in the city which have higher footfall of potential customers.
UT adviser Dharam Pal on Thursday directed the municipal corporation to examine and work on creating alternative sites for the street vendors so that their income increases.
Pal said, “We have been receiving number of complaints and representations that the current vending sites are proving to be financially unproductive. There is no point relocating the vendors to sites where footfall is low. We need to create more opportunities for them so that their livelihood is not impacted adversely.”
Except for “no vending zones” areas like Sector 17, all other locations in the city will be explored for resettling the vendors, said Pal.
Currently, there are 46 earmarked vending zones throughout the city. Notably, the MC recently got approval from the UT urban planning department for 15 new zones to resettle around 1,500 vendors. These include Sectors 19, 20, 24, 41, 45 and 52, Ram Darbar, Manimajra and Mauli Jagran. Of these, maximum vendors will be resettled in Ram Darbar, Manimajra and Mauli Jagran.
Earlier, under the policy of resettling street vendors from the city’s markets, the MC with the assistance of the administration had created vending sites across the city. The street vendors from different markets, particularly from the no-vending zones, were moved there.
Most of them were moved to these clusters like in Sector 15, but have complained that the financial viability of these sites remain poor.
In some cases, the vendors even refused to move to new zones as they contended there was little or no potential of income generation. Around 2,000 street vendors have not even taken possession of the spaces allotted to them.
Notably, the issue has come into greater focus in the background of the Covid pandemic, wherein many street vendors lost their livelihood. The issue is also politically sensitive, as both BJP and Congress have regularly sparred over the matter and with MC elections around the corner, it has gained added importance.