Unless the government rehabilitates hawkers and street vendors, it has no right to take action against them, said Nayani Narsimha Reddy, TRS leader at National Hawkers’ Federation(NHF) meet organised here on Thursday. He reminded that the rights of hawkers have been validated by the SC recently.
“It is the moral responsibility of the government to provide hawkers with employment if it wants to do away with street vendors and hawkers. Otherwise they have every right to sell their merchandise at the designated spots,” he said.
He hailed the fighting spirit of hawkers across the country which resulted in the passing the Street Vendors (Protection of livelihood and regulation of street vending) Bill with overwhelming majority in September 2013.
“Even today if police constables and municipal administrators extort money and harass hawkers, you have to fight back with unity,” he told a large gathering of hawkers.
Referring to the ignorance of authorities about the National Hawkers’ Policy, Mir Inayath Ali Baqri, general secretary of NHF said, “If police and civic authorities still continue to harass us even after the Parliament Bill and Supreme Court’s order, which safeguard our rights, we will go on an agitation”.