The ever-increasing population in Mumbai led city planners and policymakers to create Navi Mumbai as a counter magnet to Greater Mumbai. The city was planned to be a center for a formal service sector economy, while ignoring a large section of the population that works in the informal sector, including street vendors. They are then forced to occupy public spaces and pavements ‘illegitimately’.
The Street Vendors Act 2014 recognizes street vending as a legal occupation. While the law was originally intended to protect hawkers by providing licenses, the final bill was diluted in a way that makes it difficult to obtain licenses. Instead, regularisation becomes a process of keeping a check on hawkers and deeming their existence and livelihood illegal. The law requires Town Vending Committees to be formed, in order to carry out the implementation of the Act, with at least 40 % representation of street vendors on the committee. However, this has not been realized so far.
Adding to the feeble implementation of the Act, the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation repeatedly seizes goods from street vendors and evicts them from informal market spaces that are labeled ‘No Hawking Zones’. While city planners have allocated spaces for wholesale markets at Vashi and Panvel, they have failed to adequately accommodate street vendors. The allocated market spaces are insufficient in number, and even these few are located in areas that are not favorable. This makes most parts of the city other than these poorly planned vending zones a ‘No Hawking Zone’.
Over the past few years, the vendors at Konkan Bhavan market have been facing repeated displacement. They were earlier forced to move from outside the Konkan Bhavan gate to its Parking lot. They have now set up their market under the Belapur flyover, but are in danger of losing this space as well, since it has been marked by the NMMC to be made into a park. Not having a safe, stable and viable market space only adds on to their struggles as migrants in the city
Migrant Mumbai 