CHENNAI: Pointing out that there are 561 roads and 35,730 streets located in the Greater Chennai Corporation limit, apart from 70 market areas, the Madras High Court has directed the GCC to take action for constituting town vending committee for each of the 15 zones in the city (recently GCC has decided to incraese the number of zones to 20) so that the categorisation of vending and non-vending areas could be fast-tracked.
“The Chennai Corporation shall immediately write to the state to exercise the power under Section 22 (1) of the Tamil Nadu Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood) Act, 2014 to form 15 Town Vending Committees ie, one each for a Zone for all the 15 Zones in the corporation limit immediately,” a division bench of justices R Suresh Kumar and AD Jagadish Chandira said in a recent order.
The bench also directed the secretary of the municipal administration department to immediately consider and pass orders to constitute such town vending committees as per the request of the GCC. The exercise shall be completed within two months, it stressed.
The bench also directed the GCC to get approval from the government for constituting a grievance redressal committee headed by retired civil judge or judicial magistrate.
Referring to a report filed by the GCC, the bench said there are 561 roads and 35, 730 streets and 70 market areas in the corporation’s limits. Of them, 253 streets/roads/market areas have been declared as vending zones and 149 of such areas declared as non-vending zones. As many as 573 areas are referred to the town vending committee for declaring as vending zones and 1,884 referred for declaration of non-vending zones.
So far, 23,232 hawkers/street vendors have been given permission to run their business. There are 1,896 applications still pending, it noted, adding if the town vending committee takes up the task, it may take some years to complete it and declare vending and non-vending zones.
“The process of streamlining the hawkers and street vendors is a voluminous job to be undertaken by the Chennai corporation. So, constitution of the committees is imminent and therefore, the directions shall be complied with scrupulously by the GCC and the state,” the bench said. The orders were issued while hearing petitions on issuance of vendor licence.