The Times of India            27.12.2013 

Civic body to finalise hawkers' council today

NASHIK: Municipal commissioner Sanjay Kandare will be meeting the city's hawkers today to finalize the formation of the hawkers' committee required for the implementation of the national policy for hawkers to form a hawkers' zone.

To implement central government's National Policy for Hawkers, 2009, the Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) had invited applications for the formation of the hawkers' committee (town vending committee) last month.

"The meeting is a technical part for the formation of the hawkers' zone to constitute the hawkers' committee. We will have a discussion on the policy and formation of the hawkers' committee," said Khandare.

The committee will constitute 12 members in the sub-category number two and the interested hawkers who had applied for the membership in response to the NMC's public notice.

"Amongst the 12 members who will represent various groups, four will be women," president of the Nashik District Hawkers' Tapridharak Union Shantaram Chavan said. "Ours is the oldest association of hawkers in the district that has been functional for the past 35 years and is registered. We fought a lot for the cause of the hawkers and we are going to demand that the hawkers in our association be made part of the committee. We have 2,516 official members (hawkers) in our association," he said.

Members will be appointed for four sub-categories for the hawkers' committee. Out of these four sub-categories, six members have been recommended in the first sub-category by the state government. The NMC had asked for applications from citizens for the remaining three sub-categories.

Sub-category number two will have representatives of the hawkers' associations while sub-category number three will have six members from resident welfare associations and community-based organisations. The fourth sub-category is for other NGOs, representatives of professional groups like lawyers, doctors, real estate developers, architects, etc, representatives of business or commercial organisations, representatives of scheduled banks and eminent citizens.