Street Vendors Bill

                                                        Street Vendors Bill

The Rajya Sabha passed The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill. Once enacted it will provide relief to hundreds of thousands of street vendors across the country who have been facing regular harassment at the hands of police and municipalities.

Salient features of the bill:

• It provides for constitution of a Town Vending Authority in each local authority for its implementation.
• It ensures participatory decision making for vending activities like determination of natural market, identification of vending zones, preparation of street vending plan and survey of street vendors.
• It restricts arbitrariness of authorities. The bill provides for survey of existing vendors in every five years. It also provides for issuing of certificates of vending to all the street vendors identified in the survey, with preference to SC, ST, OBC, women, persons with disabilities and minorities.
• It says no street vendor will be evicted until the survey has been completed and certificate of vending issued to the street vendors.
• It provides social security: in case of accident, permanent disability, illness or death of a licence holder, the licence can be given to any one family member.
• The bill lays down a set of principles to be followed before relocation. But it specifies that relocation of street vendors should be the last resort.
• Section 29 of the bill provides for protection of street vendors from harassment by police and other authorities and provides for an overriding clause to ensure they carry on their business without the fear of harassment by the authorities under any other law.

For more details on bill click below

Street Vendors Bill