NGOs veto election of citizens in committee

Mumbai: While elections to select hawker representatives in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) town vending committee (TVC) will be held on August 29, former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) corporator Makarand Narwekar has urged the civic chief and administrator Bhushan Gagrani to invite NGOs, ALMs and citizen groups to appoint their representatives, who also form a part of TVCs, anew.
The former corporator argued that since much had changed in eight years when the last call for applications was made, it was necessary to pick fresh faces. In his letter to Gagrani, Narwekar wrote, “This is completely unfair and unjustified, given the changes that have occurred in the past years. The BMC should take this issue into account before proceeding with the appointment of NGOs/ ALMs/ Citizen Groups to the TVCs.”
By August 31, BMC plans to legalise 32, 415 street vendors by issuing them licenses through the TVC.
Narwekar’s bid was countered by resident groups and NGOs who are already members on the TVC dismissed this demand as an exercise in futility, arguing that the law does not mandate citizen representation on the TVC. The Street Vendors Livelihood & Protection Act (2014) mandates election for hawkers’ representatives but there is no mention of residents or NGO representatives in the committee.
Nikhil Desai, member of TVC in Zone VI, called it “an invalid demand and just an endless exercise to reappoint members from citizens groups”. He pointed out that the seven zonal TVCs already have one NGO representative each, while two NGO representatives are there in the central TVC.
Vidya Vaidya, a veteran activist from Bandra Reclamation Area Volunteers Organization (BRAVO), said, “The specifics of the membership in the TVC, of how it should be constituted, is very clear about hawkers’ representatives. There is no election for residents’ association (RA) representatives. Representatives are suggested by the RA. There is no question of new resident representatives coming to the TVC since there has been no change in the body of RA.”
A 20-member zonal TVC will be headed by BMC’s zonal deputy municipal corporator with a representative each from Mumbai police, MMRDA, traffic police and the respective ward’s medical health officer as its ex-officio members. Eight members belong to the hawker community, two each from NGO and ALMs and one each from shopkeepers, marketing and banking communities.
The TVCs operate at seven zones while an additional apex committee at the corporation level will be chaired by the municipal commissioner. The apex committee will issue licenses to authorised vendors while overseeing the hawking policy is implemented at the zonal TVC levels.