CHENNAI: The cat-and mouse game between officials of the Greater Chennai Corporation and the street vendors of NSC Bose road has become an everyday affair. Seventy-two-year-old Kamala R leans on a stack of crates across her fruit ‘stall’ until a customer drops by, because of her weak knee. Only two weeks ago, she fell down as she was running to save her fruits from being seized by Greater Chennai Corporation authorities.
It has become a routine on NSC Bose road that twice or thrice everyday, corporation authorities chase off fruit vendors, leaving them to pack up their crates and make a run for it. So much so, they have factored in the fruits lost during seizure, while calculating their expected profit for the day.
“We purchase fruits for 2,000 everyday and we lose 500 worth of fruits to officials when they are seized. We make 200 or 300 by the end of the day,” said Kamala.
The authorities are acting based on numerous court directives, first of which was based on a PIL filed in 2015. Although realising that the authorities are unlikely to take them lightly, vendors here come back day after day for the past two years to sell their fruits. Simply because, they have nowhere else to go. The Street Vendor Act 2014 states that vendors should be accommodated in designated zones.
However, Corporation authorities told Express that zones for vendors have not been identified yet. Sick of having to run everyday, Kamala moved her stall a few yards away from NSC Bose Road to Bunder street. Away from the visibility of the main road where all the crowd is, her business has taken a hit further.
Bhagiyam K, 65-year-old third-generation vendor, also said she fell while running away with her crates around a month ago. She now packs her fruits in small quantities, in polythene covers, rather than selling them off a crate because it’s easier to collect them and run off.
Many vendors have sat here for decades, two generations of their families before them. Fifty-eight-year-old Vijayalakshmi, for instance, sits at NSC Bose road with both her sons Manikandan and Gopi, with separate stalls beside her. They, together, are left with 600 a day, after having spent 3,000 on purchase.
“After all that they do to us, why do we still have to come and sit here? Don’t they think about that? We cannot do business anywhere else because the vendors there will be annoyed with us. We have only done the same business in the same road for three decades. We don’t know to do anything else,” said Vijayalakshmi, as she sits holding an umbrella.
The Street Vendor Act also stated that a town vending committee must conduct a survey of the vendors every five years and that no vendor be evicted until the survey is made. Almost every vendor here has received the smart card issued by the Corporation. However, the town vending committee has not been formed — this did not stop the authorities from evicting the vendors.
The vendors had earlier found a way around losing all their wares — hiding parts of their day’s purchase in nooks and crannies around the area — behind cars and in the alleys of wholesale shops nearby. This way, they would only lose whatever little they have at hand.
“But the authorities started finding out the areas where we hide the fruits and began to seize that also,” said Kumar D, district chairman of National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) and a vendor there.
‘Court orders’
When contacted, Corporation officials said that they were acting on court orders. The town vending committee has been fully formed only in zone 9 (Teynampet) so far. “NSC Bose road comes under Zone 5 where the town vending committee has not been formed. Four more members have to be identified. Maybe a solution will be arrived at when the committee is formed and a meeting is convened to decide what needs to be done here,” officials said.
Vehicles taking their place?
While the move to remove the vendors was aimed at clearing up vehicular and pedestrian congestion, barely a few minutes after the authorities chase them off each day, vehicles are parked in their place. “I’m not sure if the congestion has reduced — there are vehicles parked here in place of vendors,” said Sathyan N, a regular pedestrian on NSC Bose road. When Express visited the spot, vehicles were parked in the gaps between two vendors