THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Finally, the City Corporation is all set to make friends with the street vendors in the city. If things pan out without hiccups, street vendors in seven points of the city would be gifted a new lease of life and a modern cart to carry out their business.The Union Government had formulated a Street Vending Policy way back in 2009 and asked the state governments to come up with theirs. Accordingly, the Kerala Government in the fourth month of this year had appointed Kudumbashree as nodal agency to coordinate the formulation of street-vending policy and the local bodies have been asked to do their own part.The City Corporation, however, has joined hands with KSUDP to implement the rehabilitation as the former already has a similar project undertaken.The Council that met here the other day has given the go-ahead for the first step in the project, that of coming up with a ‘kachavada committee’ which is a 15-member committee to monitor the programme. The committee should have members from Police, Health, Revenue, Traffic, Street Vendors’ Union, NGOs and residents’ associations, apart from the Corporation officials.As many as 105 street vendors would benefit out of the scheme in the initial phase. For the time being, the project will include seven points - two areas at Museum, Shangumugham, Veli, Medical College, Iranimuttom and General Hospital Junction.The vendors include those running petty shops or shops selling cigarettes and cool drinks, the ones selling tea/food, the vendors selling porridge and tender coconut for patients (in Medical College). In the next phase, the wayside eateries (‘thattu kada’) would be included."We have approached some consultants to give us designs for the new cart which will be given to these vendors. It will have modern facilities to dispose waste and to hold items,’’ said Renjith, KSUDP corodinator in the Corporation.However, the problem before the Corporation is in finding a suitable place to rehabilitate the vendors. "The Kowdiar-East Fort area has been declared free of street vendors. So, when we identify places, it cannot be places with already choked traffic. The vendors cannot be totally displaced from an area as is the case with vendors near the hospital areas. Identifying the proper land would be a hard problem to solve,’’ said Palayam Rajan, Welfare Standing Committee of the Corporation.The Corporation had once in 1994 tried something similar when many street vendors were displaced for rehabilitation. However, very few actually got a second lease of life. It remains to be seen how fair the local body can act with the vendors this time around.
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