Just last month, Prabhakar had twice rebuilt his cart, from which he sells khasta kachoris in Dwarka, after it was demolished in anti-encroachment drives.
As he displays his ‘Certificate of Vending’, Prabhakar, a street vendor, said, “I had built a shed and also put a marble slab on my cart after years of hard work. I have been selling kachoris here for the last eight years. First, the MCD came and broke the shed and slab… When I started setting up my oven on the floor, they again came last week and seized the table on which I was keeping the oven.”
Prabhakar is not the only one.
Over a hundred other street vendors on Monday gathered for a public hearing at the Constitution Club, demanding that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) ensure that authorised vendors are not treated as “collateral damage” during their anti-encroachment drives.
At the public hearing led by the National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI), vendors said that recent drives against encroachments have resulted in the loss of livelihoods. They demanded the formation of town vending committees, the establishment of vending zones, and protection for those with legitimate documentation.
“We are not supporting illegal encroachments. But the officials need to be sensitised while carrying out these drives so that the livelihood of those with valid vending certificates is not hampered,” said Pulkit Bhagat, a street vendor from Punjabi Bagh.
The gathering comes a day after the NDMC conducted a demolition drive in the Sarojini Nagar Market late Saturday. Ashok Randhawa, president of the Sarojini Nagar Mini Market Association, said the drive was carried out without prior notice.
“We have filed multiple petitions seeking the removal of illegal sellers and a reduction in the prevailing congestion, but the NDMC never followed court orders. This led us to file a contempt petition, which may have provoked the officials. The bulldozers arrived after the market had closed [on Saturday] and began razing parts of the mini market. Even shops with proper documentation were targeted. Rain sheds and roofs were broken,” he added.
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Randhawa further said the demolition continued past midnight and affected around 500 shops. It only stopped when local traders intervened, he added.
While MCD officials said that a street vendor survey is currently underway to form vending committees, NDMC officials described the Sarojini Nagar demolition as part of a routine anti-encroachment operation.
The recent surge in anti-encroachment drives follows Chief Minister Rekha Gupta’s launch of a 20-day intensive cleanliness campaign on May 1. As part of the initiative, officials were instructed to remove encroachments.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd