Directorate of Local Bodies and City Managers’ Association Rajasthan in partnership with Jeevika: Law, Liberty & Livelihood Campaign organised a workshop to plan the road map to execute Street Vendor Policy in Rajasthan. Experts from Centre for Civil Society gave input to the government on the policy with experience from other cities of the country.

Inaugurating the workshop Director of Directorate of Local Bodies Mr. Nishkam Divakar said, “The street vendor policy is effective in Rajasthan since 2007. The Municipal Corporations have been written several times regarding execution of the policy but it is sad that the policy has not been implemented on ground till date. The objective of the workshop is to discuss challenges that the local bodies are facing and planning the way forward so that the impact of the policy is seen on the life of poor street entrepreneurs.”

Mr. Amit Chandra from Centre for Civil Society took a session giving expert input on the street vendor policy. In his presentation he also suggested stepwise process to execute in a time bound and effective manner. He said, “If followed the right process with the strong will to execute the policy can be seen on ground in three months time. This will go a long way to improve livelihood condition of urban poor.”

Mr. Vinod Simon from National Association of Street Vendors of India shared the model work done to execute the policy in different cities. Mr. Vivek Kalia from Apni Awaz forum shared problems of street vendors in Rajasthan. Chief Executive Officers/Commissioners of all Municipal Corporations (Jaipur, Udaipur, Bikaner, Kota & Ajmer) and Municipal Councils (Udaipur and Bharatpur) participated in the workshop and shared their plan of execution.
The workshop was chaired by the Director, Directorate of Local Bodies. The workshop was facilitated by Dr. Sunil Pareek of City Managers’ Association. Thank you note was delivered by Superintending Engineer of DLB Mr. K. K. Sharma. The program was covered by several print and electronic media.

Here are some news cuttings:

Press Cutting

Here is news clip from BTV News about the workshop:

Here are few pictures of the workshop:

The Rajasthan State Street Vendor Policy 2007 (Pheriwalon Ka Sansar) is effective in the state under which the Municipal Corporation is supposed to issue license and identity card to street vendors and develop vending zones. The policy even after more than 3 years of existence has not been implemented in any city of the state. Department of Local Bodies, Rajasthan Government has written several reminder letters as well to Municipal Corporations but still nothing has moved so far. On the contrary the Jaipur Municipal Corporation is running eviction drive against the poor street vendors and confiscating their carts and goods leaving poor street entrepreneurs and their families to starve.

On Tuesday, 03 May 2011 Jaipur Municipal Corporation evicted street vendors from Kabir Marg in Bani Park area and confiscated their carts and goods. The poor street vendors approached us and we facilitated a small demonstration of evicted street vendors to register their protest. The street vendors protested team of Municipal Corporation and blocked the road. However, the street vendors couldn’t do much as the municipal corporation had a huge team of officials and police.

We facilitated a meeting of evicted street vendors with Urban Development Minister, Mr. Shanti Dhariwal in leadership of former Member of legislative Assembly, Mr. Uday Singh Rathore. The street vendors met the minister, requested him not to consider street vendors encroachers and formally submitted a memorandum.

Here is a copy of press release, memorandum and press cutting:

Press Release 03 May Memorandum Press Cutting

Here are some pictures of the protest during eviction and meeting Urban Development Minister:

Jeevika campaign facilitated a mass demonstration at Jaipur Municipal Corporation head office on Wednesday, 20 April 2011. More than 500 Street Vendors from different areas of the city such as Baishali, Chitrakut, Hassanpura, NBC Road, Shashtri Nagar, Dudh Mandi, Vivek Vihar, Gujjar Ki Thadi, Jawahar Circle, Riddhi-Siddhi Chauraha, Lal Kothi, and Collectorate came to participate in the demonstration.

The street vendors demonstrated to demand implementation of the Rajasthan State Urban Street Vendor Policy 2007 (Pheriwalon Ka Sansar). The policy is in effect in state since 2007 but the Municipal Corporation has not shown interest to implement it. The recent anti encroachment drive also witnessed only eviction of street vendors in stead big shots who have illegal constructions on public land.

The demonstration started at 11 AM and continued till 3 PM after meeting Chief Executive Officer. A group of street vendors’ representatives (Amit Kumar Gond, Banwari Sharma, Nathu Singh Rathore, Om Prakash Chipa) met the CEO and submitted formal memorandum. The CEO promised not to evict street vendors and requested to maintain cleanliness and convenience of public on road and public area. He also promised to start the work under the provisions of the state policy soon.

Here is the copy of memorandum:

Memorandum to CEO

Here are the newspaper and video clips:

• Press Cutting 1
• Press Cutting 2

Here are few pictures of the mass demonstration:

 

Jeevika campaign organised two more half a day workshops on ‘Urban Street Vendor Policy’ for the key street vendor leaders of Jaipur on Sunday April 10, 2011. The first one was offered in the campaign office whereas second one was offered in Geeta Ashram, Sodala.

The objective of the workshop was to brief the street vendor leaders of the city about the street vendor policy in detail and strategizing their efforts to get the policy implemented in the city. 30 Street vendor leaders from different parts of the city attended the workshop and discussed the follow up work in their capacity with help from us.

Through all three workshops we have been able to educate around 45 street vendor leaders of Jaipur on the policy provisions. After the discussion over the provisions of the policy we asked the street vendor leaders to connect with Municipal Corporation zone offices of their area and ask the progress on the policy implementation work. The street vendor leaders felt that there is a need to educate each and every street vendor of the city and we have decided to do several small meetings for the street vendors with help from the leaders who attended our workshop. We have given title to out this activity ‘Jeevika on Street’. Here is the schedule of ‘Jeevika on Street’:

Sr. No.	Date	Time	Street Market Area	Vendor Leader	Place of Meeting
1	13-Apr	10:00 AM	Pani Tanki, Shasrty Nagar	Shyam Singh Sishodiya	Ward Nagar Nigam Office
2	14-Apr	11:00	Pandit Ji Ka Chauraha & NBC Road, Hasanpura		Pandit Ji Ka Chauraha
3	15-Apr	10:00 AM	Science Park & Subhash Nagar Sopping Complex	Nashir Khan & Narayan	Kailash Park
4	15-Apr	12:00 AM	Entire Vaishali	Kailash & Harinarayan	Talayi Park, Vaishali Nagar
5	16-Apr	11:00 AM	Gujar Ki Thadi	Gopal Singh	Gujar Ki Thadi Circle
6	16-Apr	07:00	Vivek Vihar	Babulal	Babulal’s Thadi
7	17-Apr	4:00 PM	Kavatiya Circle & Keshav Park, Sashtry Nagar	Sitaram & Sahid Bhai	Keshav Park, Sashtrynagar

It was also decided that all the street vendors would do a collective mass demonstration on April 20 at Municipal Corporation headquarter office and several small mass demonstration in zone offices.

Here are few pictures during the workshop:

Jeevika campaign organised a workshop on Urban Street Vendor Policy for the key street vendor leaders of Jaipur on March 27, 2011. The objective of the workshop was to brief the street vendor leaders of the city about the street vendor policy in detail and strategizing their efforts to get the policy implemented in the city. We had 12 street vendor leaders from different parts of the city.

The vendor leaders realized the lack of knowledge of existence of the policy and highly appreciated our effort of educating them about their rights under the policy framework. The workshop had a consensus that the street vendor unions need to be more active and organise a big mass demonstration in a month or two. Keeping this in mind the street vendors would start working immediately. The leaders agreed to do two major things from this week itself:

1. They would connect with more street vendors and strengthen their inactive unions.
2. They would meet officials in their respective zones and submit memorandums demanding the implementation of the street vendor policy 2007 which is already effective in the state.

Here is the agenda of the workshop:

Schedule

Here are few pictures during the workshop:

Jeevika: Law, Liberty & Livelihood Campaign offered a workshop to Jaipur Municipal Corporation on “Urban Street Vendor Policy and Road Map for Jaipur” on March 9, 2011. The participants of the workshop were the top officials of Jaipur Municipal Corporation who would work on implementation of policy in the city. The workshop started with a brief introduction about the Jeevika campaign and festival.

In the opening session of the workshop was addressed by the President of Centre for Civil Society, Dr. Parth J. Shah and Chief Executive Officer of Municipal Corporation Mr. Rajesh Kumar Yadav. Dr. Shah talked about growth oriented and sustainable models of development and explained why it is important to work for street vendors. He said, “There have been street vendors in all countries and all societies at some point or the other. However, later they grew up and became part of the formal economy in some countries. The growth model used in western countries is energy intensive and not very sustainable. In India, we can create a different model of economy which is less energy intensive and more sustainable by legalizing street vending.”

Mr. Rajesh Kumar Yadav, the Chief Executive Officer of Jaipur Municipal Corporation accepted the need of legalizing street vendors and executing the provisions of State Policy on street vendors. He also emphasized on education of street vendor on health and sanitation. He said, “The street vendors provide door to door goods and services to people at cheap price but we need to be train them on maintaining the space where they vend. The vendors need to keep their push cart and the surrounding clean and hygienic. They should also be educated on health issues. There is also a need of developing model push carts which is more suitable and has more facilities than the usual push carts we see today on the streets especially for street food vendors.”

The presentation on State Policy for Street Vendor 2007 ‘Phiriwalon Ka Sansar’ was given by Mr. Amit Chandra, Campaign Coordinator of Jeevika campaign. In his session he also talked about the provisions of National Policy on Urban Street Vendor 2009 and the difference between both of the policies. There was a detailed discussion on the policy provisions and how Jaipur Municipal Corporation can move forward overcoming the possible challenges of execution.

Here are few pictures of the workshop:

Here is a small video clip of the workshop:

State Level Convention on Street Vending

20 January 2011, S. K. Memorial Hall, Patna

Centre for Civil Society, Nidan and NASVI (National Association of Street Vendors of India) came together to celebrate Street Vendor Day on Jan 20 in Patna. To mark the occasion a state level convention of street vendors of Bihar was organised in Shri Krishna Memorial Hall. The convention was joined by around 3000 street vendors from across state. The agenda of the convention was to push for legislation for street vendors in the Bihar on the basis of National Urban Street Vendors Bill 2004.

The convention had the honor of having three cabinet ministers of current government in Bihar along with Members of Legislative Assembly, Member of Parliament, Mayor and many more esteemed leaders. Here is list of honorable guests:

Sr. No.	Name	Portfolio/ Position
1	Dr. Prem Kumar	Urban Development Minister
2	Mr. Ashwini Chowbey	Health Minister
3	Mr. Janardan Singh Sigriwal	Labour Minister
4	Md. Ali Anwar	Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
5	Mr. Bhola Singh	Member of Parliament, Nawada
6	Mr. Arun Kumar Sinha	Member of Legislative Assembly, Kumhrar
7	Mrs. Asha Sinha	Member of Legislative Assembly, Danapur
8	Mrs. Poonam Devi	Member of Legislative Assembly, Digha
9	Md. Afjal Imam	Mayor, Patna
10	Mrs. Vimla Devi Tulsiyayan	Mayor, Muzaffarpur
11	Mr. Vinay Kumar ‘Pappu’	Deputy Mayor, Patna

The convention started with welcome of participants and a brief overview of policy advocacy efforts so far by the anchor of the event Mr. Rakesh Tripathi. At the outset of the program street vendors from different parts of the state shared the agony of their day today life and the suffering they have to go through to make their livelihood. A skit was also performed hardship of life and struggle for street vendors in Bihar. The play had emotional appeal and connected well with the audience.

The welcome note for honorable guests was delivered by the Mr. Arbind Singh, Executive Director of Nidan and National Coordinator of NASVI. Mr. Singh emphasized the need and significance of legislation for street vendors. Addressing the convention he said, “Nidan in Bihar and NASVI at national level have been putting effort for policy change in state for around 10 years now. We tried all democratic tools to send our message to the government. We have been promised several times but nothing concrete has come out so far. We believe this convention is the last platform for our demand and hope the new government would fulfill our long awaited demand. Now, we along with street vendor unions are loosing patience and trust in government.”

Mr. Ashwini Kumar who is currently holding the Health Ministry said, “I have been engaged for the cause of street vendors for long time now. There was a time when money was extorted from the street vendors. We stopped the contracting system of revenue generation from street vendors in the entire state which has resulted into no extortion now. My ministry is working for health schemes for poor street vendors. I promise to bring health, medicine and doctors to the doorstep of poor street vendors.”

Md. Ali Anwar, Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) said, “There was a time when eviction drive was on its prime in cities of Bihar against the poor street vendors. Now the time is over. Mr. Nitish Kumar Chief Minister of Bihar has ordered for a pilot survey of street vendors in Bihar and soon he is going to come full fledge on this. It is sad that the issues of cycle rickshaw pullers, street vendors and other poor are disappearing from the agenda of political parties today. I will put up a question on the problems of street vendors in parliament.”

Mr. Amit Chandra, Campaign Coordinator of Jeevika: Law, Liberty & Livelihood campaign emphasized on the significance of informal sector and the development model to be created for overall development of the state. Addressing at the convention Mr. Chandra said, “Bihar has come out of dark age and growing with fast pace today. There are different models of development which has been applied worldwide. Today, not only India but the entire world is looking up at Bihar. Bihar government needs to apply the model that helps all and which is best suited to the state. The people of Bihar also want development which is clearly visible with the result of last election. There was significant contribution of youth and women in this year polling and they are the most impatient population so the government has to be careful while drafting its policies and schemes. Street vendors are a significant part of informal sector and contribute enormously in the urban distribution system. Legislation for poor street vendors would bring the growth of the state close to poor people and help them participate in the development process as well as benefit from it.”

Dr. Prem Kumar, Urban Development Minister promised to work out legislation for street vendors in the current financial year. Addressing at the conference he said, “Every street vendor today has a challenge of leading a life with dignity. I am aware of the problems that the poor street vendors have to face in their every day life. We will put a proper system at place for the convenience of all. I have passed the order to draft legislation and my officers are working on it. I will try to pass the legislation by the end of current financial year and implement in the state. We are also working on urban employment schemes to reduce the problem of poverty and unemployment in the cities of the state. We are running Indira Housing Scheme in rural areas to give well planned concrete house to the poor of villages. We have also erected night shelters to help the homeless urban poor in the winter.”

Mr. Arun Kumar Sinha, Member of Legislative Assembly (Kumhrar) promised to continue advocating for street vendors. “I have always stood for the poor of the city whenever I have been approached and I will continue standing for them. Bihar is growing today which is very important for growth of India. We would create an exemplary society in Bihar which would benefit all”, he said at the event.

Mrs. Poonam Devi, Member of Legislative Assembly (Digha) shared the idea of creating vending zones for street vendors on the vacant government land. Addressing the audience at the event she said, “I have seen the poverty very closely and lived among them. I am aware of the suffering the poor street vendors have to go through in their everyday struggle to make their living. You are fighting for your rights and I support you. There are empty government lands in the city. We would work for creating vending zones and shops for poor street vendors.”

Many other street vendor and their leaders also addressed the audience to share their problems and experience. At the end of the convention Mr. Satyendra Narayan delivered the thank you note.

Here are some media coverage of the convention:

Aaj Times of India Telegraph Sanmarg Rashtriya Sahara Prabhat Khabar Hindustan

Hindustan Times Dainik Jagran

Here are few pictures of the convention:

Here is a video where Urban Development minister at the convention:

Bihar Urban Development Minister on Street Vendor Policy

National Urban Street Vendor Policy 2004 came into existence on January 2004 recognizing positive contribution of street vendors and hawkers in India. Jan 20 is celebrated as Street Vendor Day by street vendor associations in India to mark the occasion. In Jaipur a rally was organised by ‘Jaipur Mahanagar Thadi-Thela Fotpath Vyavasayi Union’ in collaboration with ‘Jeevika: Law, Liberty & Livelihood campaign’ to mark the occasion on the eve of the Vendors’ Day.

The rally saw participation of more than 200 street vendors from different parts of city and was lead by the president of ‘Jaipur Mahanagar Thadi-Thela Fotpath Vyavasayi Union’. It started from Saheed Smarak, Government Hostel and reached Jaipur Development Authority office demanding regularization of street market of 17 No. street market in Badhana Road. A group of representatives met JDA officials and submitted memorandum demanding creating a proper market for the street vendors of 17 No. road in Badhana Road, Vishwakarma Industrial Area. Afterwards the street vendors marched to the Udhyog Maidan in shape of the Rally. Here the representatives met the officials of Chief Minister Office and handed over a memorandum to the representative of Chief Minister demanding a legislation for street vendors of the state and its early implementation.

Memorandum to JDA Memorandum Jan 19