TIRUCHY: Acting on a court directive in the latest litigation over the conduct of the election for the town vending committee (TVC), the city corporation on Wednesday commenced verification of the street vendors list. Were there no further litigation following the findings of the week-long drive, the TVC election -- pending since 2019 -- would be held in April or May, corporation officials said.
Hearing a plea alleging irregularities in the civic body’s street vendors list, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on March 7 directed the Tiruchy corporation to remove the names of the deceased from its survey compilation. A senior corporation official said that such a directive was made to ensure that the existing list identifying 6,220 vendors in Tiruchy doesn't have any errors.
"The vendors can inform us if the list has any deceased persons. We would also check it from our side. This exercise, which started on Wednesday (March 19), will be over by March 26. Once that is completed, we are ready to conduct the (TVC) election. If everything goes well, we will conduct it in April itself," a senior official said.
On the verification drive and the subsequent conduct of polls, Sadiq Hussain, a vendor on NSB Road, said, "It is too early to comment on it. We will clarify our stand once they (corporation) release the updated list." Some, however, hinted that they will approach court if not satisfied with the updated list.
Meanwhile, officials and residents alike stressed the need for the conduct of the TVC election to address the inconvenience unregulated vending causes to traffic and pedestrian movement. “The authorities can conduct a meeting with the vendors before publishing the updated list," said P Balasubramanian, an elderly resident of Anna Nagar.