New Delhi has hailed Assam for setting up grievance redressal committee to settle issues of street vendors.
Assam is among four states in India which have formed grievance redressal committee.
Officials in the union ministry of housing and urban affairs said that Section 20 of the Street Vendors Act 2014 requires formation of one or more grievance redressal committees ‘consisting of a chairperson who has been a civil judge or a judicial magistrate and two other professions’.
“Only four states including Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab have formed grievance redressal committee,” the officials said.
The Street Vendors Act 2014 institutionalises the mechanism to protect and regulate vending. The Act states that each Urban Local Body (ULB) should have at least one Town Vending Committee (TVC).
Currently, there are only 2,382 TVCs for 7,263 ULBs in India.
Moreover 42 per cent of these TVCs do not have vendor representatives.
Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Karnataka and Telangana are yet to comply with notifying the rules of the Act.
Interestingly, a finding of the union ministry of housing and urban affairs stated Mizoram as the best compliance state with all six towns in the state have a TVC with vendor representatives.
“The TVCs, however, do not have an assigned office space and have not published the charter. There are no grievance redressal committee,” the findings said.
The findings said that there are seven TVCs in Meghalaya but without vendor representation. One town has marked vending zones but without a plan, the findings said.
Tripura has formed TVCs in all 20 towns but only 25 per cent of the TVCs have enumerated vendors.
Manipur is among the poor compliance state in India as far as implementation of the Act is concerned.
“Manipur has enumerated vendors, issued identity cards, published a plan and earmarked vending zones but in the absence of a scheme,” said the findings.