The State Cabinet on Wednesday approved the draft Meghalaya Street Vendors Scheme, 2023 which seeks to regulate hawking and street vending in the state.
Addressing the media after the meeting, MDA government spokesperson Paul Lyngdoh said, “The intention of the government is to strike a balance between the need to provide livelihood to street vendors and the need to also ensure that other equally important issues like law and order, decongestion and safety to pedestrians and the fact that as we observed in the recent fire incident how street hawkers were a major cause of the delay in the intervention by the fire services in containing the inferno at Khyndailad.”
Highlighting the salient features of the scheme, Lyngdoh said the scheme broadly speaks of town vending committees, who will be eligible to be identified as legal hawkers. For instance, the person has to possess an EPIC issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI) plus a certificate to show that he/she has been residing in Meghalaya for three years.
The vendor should have been vending in a particular spot for a minimum of six months and should possess a valid trade license in areas that are outside of the three normal areas under the control of the Shillong Municipal Board.
The cabinet minister also announced that a survey of street vendors and identification of vending zones and no vending zones will soon start and said, “The government will also strive to provide dedicated vending zones and market spaces to the street vendors.”
He also maintained that the process will allow the segregation of legal and illegal street vendors and legally authorized registered vendors will be given spaces in the vending zones.
To a question, Lyngdoh said that based on the cabinet decision today, the government will immediately notify the scheme before starting to conduct the survey.
“Within two months’ time we will be ready with the registration process after that we then decide on which areas will be vending and which areas will be no vending zones,” he said while further asserting that footpaths – which majority are being encroached by street vendors – are not allowed to be declared as vending zones.
“We will ensure the vending zones will not impede the movement of traffic, movement of pedestrians – those are factors which will be taken into account.”
There are over 3,000 plus hawkers and street vendors operating in Shillong.
Further, Lyngdoh said that the government has a plan in mind to also construct hawker’s markets.
Meanwhile, the government has also decided to declare a particular zone for night hawking.
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