The Indian Express         30.11.2013

Civic body speeds up work undertaken to rehabilitate hawkers

As per the orders of Supreme Court and directions from the state government, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has speeded up the work of survey and registration of hawkers for their rehabilitation.

"The civic body has undertaken biometric survey for hawkers. Simultaneously, committees of hawker representatives and civic officers is being formed in each ward office to identify locations for rehabilitation of hawkers in their respective areas," said Additional Municipal Commissioner Rajendra Jagtap.

He said other civic bodies of the state are approaching PMC to understand steps taken to register hawkers and rehabilitate them. "The PMC is well ahead of other civic bodies in implementing the Supreme Court order," said Jagtap.

Madhav Jagtap, incharge of anti-encroachment department, PMC, said, "The civic body has decided to use unique software to bring transparency in the process. Under the system, agency appointed by the civic body will identify all the hawkers ward-wise and record their thumb impressions and collect their photographs with their respective stalls."

Currently, there are 22,000-25,000 hawkers in the civic limits who operate without licences and permissions.

"Once the data is ready, the committees set up to relocate hawkers will start identifying places for setting up markets for hawkers," said Jagtap.

The new system will be online with GIS Maps where complete ward-wise onsite survey of all hawkers and stall owners in PMC limit will be available with thumb impressions, photographs, UID information and GIS attributes. Smart cards would be distributed to hawkers.