NEW DELHI: Even as municipal bodies in Delhi push to formalise street vending through surveys and vending certificates, thousands of vendors remain caught between official promises of regulation and the reality of evictions and exclusions.
The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) recently issued Certificates of Vending (CoVs) to 1,169 vendors across Lutyens’ Delhi after finalising 21 vending layout plans covering markets such as Connaught Place, Janpath, Khan Market, and Kartavya Path.
The move, part of a long-delayed effort to implement the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, was intended to bring order to one of the city’s most contested public spaces.
However, vendor groups say the process has instead sidelined large sections of the informal workforce. “The NDMC has been very restrictive while issuing licences. The full survey is not even complete,” said Arbind Singh, national coordinator of the National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI).
“The idea is to regulate vendors, not exclude most of them and give licences to just a few.”
Singh said NASVI’s independent survey across six zones of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) found only 17,000 vendors in total — far fewer than the often-cited figure of five lakh — and called for the creation of new vending spaces, including night markets, to promote welfare and employment.
But even licensed vendors are facing uncertainty. In late May, hundreds of vendors across the city were evicted during anti-encroachment drives by MCD and police, with several reporting that their valid vending certificates were ignored.
“Earlier, we could show the certificate and continue work. This time, they didn’t care,” said Saleem Sheikh, a clothes vendor from Madhu Vihar.
Vendor associations argue that such actions undermine the credibility of the licensing process itself.
