Bihar Government has finally agreed to create vending zones in 29 cities of the state after criticism by the High Court on failing to develop vending zones. We feel that our effort at almost levels of the agencies seems to be paying off.

The Urban Development Minister, Mr Prem Kumar announced on Monday, 2^nd July 2012 that the state government will create vending zones in order to provide market arrangements to the street vendors according to National Policy on Urban Street Vendors 2009. He was evaluating the work done by the department through DFID. He cited the example of Motihari where the construction of vending zone has already started and mentioned the plan to build vending zone in Rajbanshi Nagar, Patna where the demarcation has already been done.

The 29 Urban bodies where the vending zones for street vendors would be created are Patna, Danapur, Khagaul, Phulwarsharief, Hajipur, Biharsharief, Chhapra, Ara, Begusarai, Siwan, Gaya, Bodh Gaya, Dehri on sone, Sasaram, Aurangabad, Nawada, Purnia, Saharsa, Kishanganj, Bhagalpur, Munger, Jamalpur, Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Bettiah, Motihari, Darbhanga and Rajgir.

Here are few news paper cuttings regarding the same:

Press Cutting on Vending Zones

Jaipur Municipal Corporation started a ten day long campaign to remove encroachment from walled city area of Jaipur from Monday, 30 April 2012. The campaign was started on basis of a report submitted by an Empowered Committee constituted by Supreme Court of India. This was 11^th such cleaning drive in walled city in last 12 years, ‘Operation Pink’ being the first one in year 2000. Here are some news clips and news links regarding the eviction drive:

News Cutting

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-04-30/jaipur/31505987_1_anti-encroachment-drive-temporary-encroachments-shopkeepers

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-05-02/jaipur/31539892_1_temporary-encroachments-badi-chaupar-jmc

Once again, poor street vendors were the first victim of the anti encroachment drive instead of removing permanent encroachment by land mafias even when the state government had passed ‘Rajasthan Urban Street Vendor (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 2011’ and notified on 1^st April 2012. The authorities tried to complete the formality of demolishing permanent encroachment by evicting poor street vendors who make their livelihood by selling fruits, vegetables and other stuffs of daily use on street.

We took up the issue very seriously and made our strategy to raise the issue of livelihood of poor street vendors and persuade JMC to find suitable solution to the issue so that the objective of beautifying the city can be attained without any loss of livelihood. In this regard CCS did several rounds of meetings with JMC officials, street vendor groups, community leaders and business group of the area to convince allowing systematic vending on street to add convenience for all. In this regard here are few major initiatives taken by CCS apart from several other things done:

1) CCS held meetings with street vendors on May 03, 2012 to organize and unite them to face or counter the eviction activity and workout a practical solution.

2) CCS participated in the meeting organized by JMC on the issue on May 03, 2012 to stand for the cause of livelihood of poor street vendors. The agenda of the meeting was to create consensus on eviction of street vendors from the walled city. We raised questions about taking vendors view point on eviction, legal parameters, and provisions of act on street vending.

3) We conducted a detailed study of the eviction area with pictures and video of the area, organized stake holder meetings and several rounds of meetings with JMC officials. We convinced all the stake holders of one particular market to allow systematic street vending to avoid traffic congestion at the same time to add convenience in the market.

4) On 17 May 2012, we gave a detailed presentation to the members of the Supreme Court Empowered Committee explaining rights of street vendors under the ‘Rajasthan Urban Street Vendor (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 2011’, ‘National Policy on Urban Street Vendors 2009’ and previous judgments of various courts in favor of street vendors. Justice V. S. Dave and Justice I. S. Israni liked the presentation and shared their ideas too regarding considering right to livelihood of poor street vendors as their fundamental right under the constitution. Here are some pictures during the presentation:

Supreme Court Empowered Committee Members in Discussion

Justice V. S. Dave in Discussion

Aprajita Sharma Giving Presentation

Justice V. S. Dave and I. S. Israni Watching Presentation

5) Convinced with our representation the Supreme Court Empowered Committee sent a letter to JMC asking not to evict street vendors and develop inclusive plan for street vendors according to the ‘Rajasthan Urban Street Vendor (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 2011’ and share it with them. The committee also mentioned in the letter that the JMC can seek help of CCS in this matter. Here is copy of the letter:

Letter of Empowered Committees

6) Taking cognizance of our meetings, raising the issue and getting the empowered committee notice, the JMC decided to allow street vendor to vend from the same place and not evict. Here is a news clip reading the same:

News Cutting

Jeevika campaign office of Centre for Civil Society in Jaipur hosted a group from Leaders’ Quest (http://www.leadersquest.org/) to understand its work on policy advocacy on Monday, April 23, 2012. Leaders’ Quest, a social enterprise committed to improving the quality and impact of leaders around the world delivers unique experiential programmes to integrate social purpose with performance at the core of their organisations. LQ mentors high calibre leaders, from boardrooms to grassroots communities, who are changing the world around them. This quest was tailor made for Bain & Company (http://www.bain.com/). 11 Business leaders of the company representing South East Asia, Australia, United States of America, France, Belgium, South Africa and South Korea participated in the visit.

The objective of the visit was to understand:

1. The informal economy, providing livelihoods and employment for millions.
2. Policy change and implementation – the story of getting legislation passed in Rajasthan and the challenges of getting new policies implemented.
3. Personal perspective on the informal economy from street vendors in Jaipur markets.

The visit lasted for more than three hours. The visit started with a brief presentation on Jeevika: Law, Liberty & Livelihood campaign work by Mr Amit Chandra, Jeevika National Coordinator wherein he explained in detail the idea behind the campaign as well as the initiatives of the campaign and how those initiatives helped the campaign reaching its goal. The presentation was followed by questions and answers from the LQ participants. We also had three street vendor representatives during the presentation for interaction with LQ participants.

After having brief understanding about the issues related with street vending and the campaign work, the LQ participants visited one street market to witness and understand the challenges. After the visit the participants once again had further interactions with campaign team to understand the connection between grassroot issues and larger economic growth. The LQ participants were fascinated by the insights to the informal (moving to formal) economy, civil society and its relationship with government and motivation of the campaign team for the work and leadership style.

Here is brief profile of participants from Bain & Capital who participated visited the campaign work through Leaders’ Quest programme:

Profile of Participants

Here are some pictures of the visit:

Rajasthan assembly passed The Rajasthan Urban Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 2011 on 29 August 2011 (Find detailed information here: https://jeevika.org/rajasthan-assembly-passes-bill-for-urban-street-vendors/). The state act is based upon the model act drafted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India.

The state government was working on drafting rules and schemes to implement the policy after passing the bill. Now the government has notified the act to be effective in the state from 1 April 2012. Hence, the act is now effective in the state which will recognize contribution of street vendors in economy and society. However, the state government has not issued guidelines for implementation of the act as yet. Here is the copy of notification letter of the act which was received though RTI application:

Notification Letter

The jury is happy to announce the winners of the essay competition. The jury didn’t find the quality of essays according to CCS standard and expectation. Hence, the jury decided not give the first prize. Here is the list of 1st runner prize (2nd award), 2nd runner prize (3rd award) and two consolation prizes:

Adding another loop in the chain of struggle to get their business back, around 500 street vendors demonstrated at Jaipur Municipal Corporation headquarter on January 05, 2012. Gherao was after a day from the press conference projecting their agitation for violation of their Right to Livelihood. Authorities have umpteen excuses to escape implementing Pheriwalo Ka Sansar, State Policy for Street Vendors, 2007. But taking away vendors’ only means of subsistence, to make jaipur welcoming for “Pravasi Bhartiya Diwas” is a day process for them.

“Global Indian, inclusive Growth”, the much written slogan for Pravasi Bhartiya Diwas was surely not much claimed. Indians are going global indeed but inclusive growth is far away from the sight. And this has been exemplified currently in Jaipur, as to welcome global Indians inclusive growth is getting hindered. This unfair attitude of Municipal Corporation towards street vendors goaded them to demonstrate. Vendors were found saying, “If we take the right path for our sustenance, government put endless constraints in our way and when illegitimacy is the only option gets left out then jail is our destination. There is no way out for us in this absurd democratic form of government”. Had the policy been implemented of giving authorized land to vendors to run their business and registering them to give identity, eviction of vendors to beautify the city and consequently pain to them wouldn’t have happened. Higher authorities had passed the order to evict vendors mainly from 8 routs of the event. But seeing the new source of making money, police threatened vendors and seized their belongings from also. Furious by all this the demonstration continued for 5 HOURS from 11 AM to 4 PM with cries against authorities including CEO, Dr. Loknath Soni of JMC and Mayor, Jyoti khandelwal. Proactive street vendors and union leaders addressed the whole group pointing out their problems and claiming that they wouldn’t put an end to Gherao unless this eviction doesn’t stop, they aren’t given their belongings, policy of 2007 not implemented and an officer to look after their issues is not appointed. After a long wait of 5 hours a representative group got called inside to talk to Additional Chief Executive Officer, Mr. M. P. Meena, Vigilance Commissioner, Mr. Dinesh Sharma on the issue. A group of 6 people including Banwari Sharma, President of Heritage City Thadi Thela Union, Amit Chandra, Centre for Civil Society and Sanjay Garg, Centre for Policy Solution went inside to put the following demands of Street vendors :

1. To stop harassment and eviction of street vendors on the name of encroachment immediately.
2. Compensation to be given to the evicted street vendors for loss of their livelihood and returning of the belongings.
3. Implementing the National Policy, 2007 at the earliest after forming a committee to work on it and appointing an officer.

The demonstration ended after following promises by JMC authorities:

1. Street vendors wouldn’t be evicted in future any more.
2. Belongings of the vendors from other areas than the 8 main rout of the event would be released immediately.
3. Belonging of the vendors from main 8 routs of the event would be given back after 9 January 2012.
4. Implementation work on street vendor policy would be started soon.

Hundreds of street vendors were evicted in Jaipur while the administration was trying to beautify the city for Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas program. Street vendors of Hassanpura, Vaisali, Pandit Ji Ka Chauraha, N.B.C. road, Sindhi camp, Railway station, Ajmer road and Sodala have been the major target of authorities apart from the main rout of the event. The eviction drive badly impacted livelihood of poor street vendors.

In this regard the street vendors met the Chief Minister, Urban Development Minister, Collector Jaipur, Chief Executive Officer of Jaipur Municipal Corporation and other officers in line to stop the eviction drive immediately and complete their demands within two days. Disappointed by insensitiveness of the administration the street vendor unions decided to Gherao Jaipur Municipal Corporation on January 05, 2012 and protest during the PBD summit in aegis of Jeevika campaign of Centre for Civil Society. Centre for Civil Society organised a press conference on January 03, 2012 wherein representatives of all the street vendor unions of city came together to address their grievances.

Addressing the press conference Jeevika National Coordinator, Amit Chandra said, “National Street Vendor Policy was prepared by Government of India in 2004 which has provision of legalizing street vending and protecting the right to livelihood of poor street vendors. It has provision of license, identity card to street vendors along with other several provisions of vending zones, insurance and pension schemes, training on hygiene etc. Following the national policy state government made Rajasthan Street Vendor Policy ‘Pheriwalon Ka Sansar’ in 2007 which is effective in state till date. The state government also passed a bill in state assembly in August to give legal status to poor street vendors. In such a scenario evicting street vendors is unconstitutional”.

Banwari Sharma, president of Heritage City Thadi Thela Union said, “Jaipur Municipal Corporation and Jaipur Development Authority has started a cleaning drive and are evicting poor street vendors everyday. They are seizing all our goods and carts. We don’t have any other option to make our living. Hence, we are forced to come on street to make two square meal for our family.”

Sanjay Garg of Centre for Policy Solutions said, “The government is trying to show a fake city to the foreign guests during the PBS summit. It is against the right to livelihood with dignity of poor street vendors. Such a step of dictatorial step of administration is not acceptable in a democratic society such as ours.”

Nathus Singh Rathore, Nagarmal Prajapati, Kailash Verma, Babulal Sharma, Basant Haryana, Yaqub Bhai, Hanif Bhai and many other street vendor representatives were present in the press conference.

Here are few pictures of the press conference:

Here is press coverage of the conference:

Here is a clip from BTV News of the press conference:

CCS Academy

presents

ìpolicy

Certificate in Public Policy for Development Leaders

Delhi, 18 – 20 November 2011

List of Shortlisted Candidates