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

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:

Street vendors of Civil Lines Zone area of Jaipur Municipal Corporation organised a mass demonstration with support from Centre for Civil Society on 06 July 2011. Hundreds of street vendors from Vaishali Nagar, Hassanpura, Char Number Dispensary and Pandit Ji ka Chauraha and other parts of the area participated in the demonstration. The street vendors were demanding implementation of State Street Vendor Policy 2007 which is in effect in the state but not executed till date. They met the commissioner of the zone and submitted a memorandum along with the copy of the policy and the order letters issues to zone office.

Addressing the crowd Banwari Lal Sharma said, “According to the policy the zone office of Municipal Corporation is supposed to survey and provide license and identity card to each of the street vendors. Several order letter and reminder letters have been sent to the zone office from headquarter have been sent to the zone office but the zone office isn’t doing anything.”

Amit Kumar Gond, Campaign Associate of CCS addressed the street vendors and informed them about the right of street vendor under the policy. At the end of the demonstration a group of street vendor representatives met the commissioner of the zone and submitted a memorandum.

The demonstration was lead by the Mr. Kailash Verma (Vishali nagar), Mr. Yakoob bhai (Hasanpur), Mr. Naagar Mal Prajapati (char number dispensary), and Hanif Bhai (Pandit ji ka choraha) under the banner of Heritage City Thadi Thela Union. Former Member of Legislative Assembly, Mr. Uday Singh Rathor also joined the demonstration.

The demonstration was covered by news papers (Rajasthan Patrika, Daily News, Mahanagar Times, Dainik Aaj, Samachar Jagat) and electronic media (India TV, Bhaskar News, Digi News, HSBC).

Please watch news clip from BTV News here:

Please find the press cutting here:

Press Cutting

Here are few pictures of the demonstration:

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: