TRAVAILS OF A PILOT PROJECT

Common Cause organized a Press Conference on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 at the Press Club of India, New Delhi to focus media attention on the plight of Sewa Nagar Pilot Project, which was launched by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi in partnership with Manushi Sangathan, an NGO headed by the noted author and public activist, Ms. Madhu Kishwar. The Pilot aims to demonstrate the viability of a self- governing vendor market as envisaged in the National Policy on Urban Street Vendors, 2004.

The Press Conference was held in the context of an imminent threat of take over of the Project by the local mafia and repeated attacks by criminal elements operating in the Project area with impunity on Ms Kishwar and her associates. Excerpts from the Press Note released at the Conference are reproduced below.

“Saving the Sewa Nagar Pilot Project from Imminent Takeover by Criminal Elements

Since its inception in 1980, Common Cause has been ventilating significant public causes and striving for a lasting improvement in the quality of governance. Of late, Common Cause has been concerned with the legal – administrative environment in which millions of urban street vendors earn their livelihood by supplying the goods and services needed by a large section of the urban population. The chaotic conditions in which urban street vendors are forced to operate expose them to exploitation by the civic authorities, the police and the political establishment. They also suffer extortion and violence at the hands of criminal elements enjoying the patronage of local politicians and the police. The lack of discipline on their own part also earns the street vendors the hostility of other road users and local residents.

There has been a long struggle to devise a policy frame which would allow this important economic activity to be carried out in a lawful and systematic manner, without occasioning inconvenience to other road users and the neighborhoods. The National Policy on Urban Street Vendors, which was formulated in 2004 and revised in 2007, represents an important landmark in this quest. Ms Madhu Kishwar, the noted scholar and social activist, has been a key participant in this policy intervention. She has also come forward to demonstrate the feasibility of the concept of a self-governing vendor market through a pilot project launched by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi at Sewa Nagar, near Defence Colony in New Delhi, with the express permission of the Supreme Court of India. Supported by the volunteers of Manushi Sangathan, an NGO headed by Ms. Madhu Kishwar, the Project met with a remarkable success, thanks to the willing cooperation of the street vendors of Sewa Nagar. It has won national and international acclaim as a model which demonstrates the feasibility of the concept of using public spaces such that the urban poor are able to earn their livelihood by providing the goods and services needed by a majority of urban consumers, without posing a hazard to public order, health and hygiene and aesthetics. The Sewa Nagar Project has also enjoyed the blessings of the Prime Minister, the Lt Governor of Delhi and top functionaries of the state and civic administrations.

The very success of the Pilot Project has, however, made the local criminal elements, backed by certain sections of the enforcement agencies and the political establishment, more determined to sabotage the experiment and capture the vendor market, since its commercial value has gone up phenomenally in the last three years. There is a concerted effort to discredit the Project by subverting its discipline, to intimidate the project personnel through physical violence, canards and false cases, and to dispossess the allottees of vending sites of their stalls. Violent attacks have been made on Ms Kishwar and her key associates, but the perpetrators have been allowed to go scot-free.

There is an urgent need to focus and sustain media attention on the significance of the Sewa Nagar Project and its trials and tribulations. Besides the threat to the person of the architect and prime mover of the Project, the main issue involved is that of the sustainability of a civil society initiative for imparting a pro-poor bias to the policy for utilization of public spaces Another question that needs an answer is why the sanction of the Apex Court and the patronage and collective goodwill of the highest national, state level and civic authorities have not been able to neutralize the nefarious designs of the local criminal gangs acting in league with certain sections of the political establishment and elements of the enforcement agencies. Also at stake is the fate of the National Policy on Urban Street Vendors, which has the potential to benefit millions of poor vendors across the country and their families, by allowing them to operate with dignity and in harmony with their environment, without the threat of extortion, expropriation and ejection.

Larger Significance of the Sewa Nagar Project

We bring the plight of Sewa Nagar project to national attention, because the fate of the National Policy is linked with the fate of this pilot project.

As per the mandate of the National Policy for Street Vendors, the MCD has announced that it will be allotting 3, 00,000 tehbazari licenses and vending sites in Delhi. Given the severe shortage of commercial space in Delhi, these vending kiosks are seen as prized assets. At a modest average of Rs 10 lakh per vending kiosk/stall, 300,000 tehbazari sites represent assets worth Rs 30,000 crore. If the Government appears too weak to resist the takeover of a small pilot project from criminal mafias, it cannot possibly save hawking stalls and kiosks in the rest of the Delhi and other cities from being similarly grabbed by criminal mafias. The process of applications and selections so far adopted by the MCD for grant of tehbazaris has the making of a humungous scam.

We demand that:

  • An empowered independent Commission headed by the Lt. Governor of Delhi should be set up to institute a rational, honest and accountable system for legalizing the status of street vendors and to prevent extortionist mafias and vested interests from capturing vending spots in hawking zones.
  • A citywide computerised database should be created by a credible and independent agency to identify those who are actually operating on the streets, their exact location and numbers as a first step towards determining who qualifies to get tehbazari rights
  • Appropriate punitive action against criminal mafias who are out to destroy and grab the pilot project and permanent removal of their illegal businesses from Sewa Nagar.
  • Installation of CCTV cameras in the project area to keep the local criminals at bay and provide safety of life to project members and to prevent the take over of project stalls and other assets by mafia elements.”

Jan-March, 2008