The Supreme Court and various High Courts have time and again upheld the right to livelihood of street vendors and have observed that unreasonable restrictions cannot be imposed on them. But the BBMP does not seem to agree and has been acting in violation of the courts’ orders. In the Bombay Hawkers Union v. BMC & Others case, the apex court had held that street-vending is a fundamental right. It also held that the poor and unorganised cannot be left in a state of limbo and at the mercy of policies and schemes that change from time to time.
The court laid down a set of guidelines to strike a balance between the rights of vendors and other road and footpath-users. The BBMP is, however, whimsical and has reduced street vendors in Bengaluru to the very predicament that the Supreme Court warned against. Its policy is in variance with court orders and the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act. The Act aims to protect the right to livelihood of street vendors and to regulate their activities through demarcation of vending zones and imposing certain reasonable restrictions. But in Bengaluru, vendors in some areas enjoy unfettered rights, even if it means causing inconvenience to pedestrians and motorists, while in others, they are summarily removed without as much as being served a notice. The eviction of vendors and hawkers from Church Street and from around the Banashankari metro station recently are only two of many such instances.
The police claim that vendors on Church Street were blocking the footpath and disrupting free flow of traffic. But wasn’t Church Street remodelled into a cobbled-stone street at high cost to make it a pedestrian-only street that encouraged a lively high-street with vendors and busking? The authorities’ minds seem fickle, unable to decide what the character of Church Street should be. Lately, street vendors and talented artists busking on the street have been shooed away and motorists once again hold sway over it. Meanwhile, street vendors on the parallel M G Road carry on as usual. The Banashankari vendors claim they were evicted though they had valid licences from the BBMP to carry on their trade.
As required by the Vending Act, the BBMP should conduct a fresh survey of vendors and ensure that they are accommodated in zones earmarked for them. It should be made clear to the police that they can neither harass vendors and hawkers for bribes nor can they evict them arbitrarily. Vendors and hawkers are very much a part of the city’s life and have a right to eke out their livelihood as much as anybody else.