The Hindu Business Line : Tug-of-war with hawkers

Civic authorities all over India are constantly engaged in a tug-of-war with hawkers. They have not got the better of them, nor is there any hope that they ever will.

Every time civic officials and the police with batons and bull-dozers evict them and clean up the place, they come back to their erstwhile haunts in hordes to resume their brisk business from where they left off.

The problem refuses to go away. No enduring or sustainable solution is in sight.

For this, the hawkers cannot be blamed. They are human beings who have to support themselves and their families. They receive no help or succour from government or non-government sources. The relentless pressure of burgeoning population is adding to their numbers. They have to find some way of eking out their existence.

Let us also acknowledge the social purpose they serve. It could not have been set out in a more telling fashion than in the following excerpt from a Supreme Court ruling: “If properly regulated according to the exigency of the circumstances, the small traders on the side walks can considerably add to the comfort and convenience of the general public, by making available ordinary articles of everyday use for a comparatively lesser price.

An ordinary person, not very affluent, while hurrying towards his home after a day’s work can pick up these articles without going out of his way to find a regular market. The right to carry on trade or business mentioned in Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution, on street pavements, if properly regulated, cannot be denied on the ground that the streets are meant exclusively for passing or re-passing and no other use.”

The National Policy for Urban Street Vendors also echoes this: “The role played by the hawkers in the economy as also in the society needs to be given due credit but they are considered as unlawful entities and are subjected to continuous harassment by Police and civic authorities.”

Formidable challenge

In 1985, the Supreme Court had approved a scheme prepared by the Mumbai Municipal Corporation to regulate hawkers on the following lines:

Hawkers should do their hawking business only on an area of one metre by one metre on the footpath wherever it exists or on the extreme sides of the carriage way, in such a manner that the vehicular and pedestrian traffic is not obstructed and access to shops and residences is not blocked...

Hawkers should not put up any stall or place any table, stand or such other thing or erect any type of structure on the pitch on which they are conducting their business nor should they hawk on handcarts...

Hawkers should not hawk within 100 metres of any place of worship, educational institution or general hospital and within 150 metres of any Municipal or other market...

Hawkers should do their business only between 7 am and 10 pm on the day on which the prescribed daily fee is recovered...

The daily fee charged will not confer upon the hawker the right to do his business at any particular place.

These prescriptions offer a pragmatic framework to balance the right to livelihood of the hawkers with the right of pedestrians and road-users to adequate space for safe and easy movement.

In any case, what is clear is that the knee-jerk reflex of throwing them out time after time will not work.

Relocation in what to them are unfamiliar surroundings with uncertain demand for their wares is not also a practical option. They will come back since that is the only means of keeping their bodies and souls together.

It is a formidable challenge, no doubt, but the civil society can no longer burke taking the lead to meet it.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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