PRESS
RELEASE
Open letter to the Honourable Lieutenant Governor
Nehru Place Vendors on indefinite Satyagraha and hunger
strike from June 6th starting 11 noon outside Lt. Governor's Office
Dear Sir,
After
a long time Delhi has the good fortune of having a Lt. Governor who is
responsive to the legitimate needs of all citizens, rich and poor alike. And
yet the uprooted vendors of Nehru Place are facing such constant assaults on their
livelihood that they feel they have no other recourse left but to sit on an indefinite Satyagraha. Some of them have also decided to
undertake a fast unto
death, outside your
office starting June 6th in order to bring attention to their
tragic plight. We at Manushi have no choice but to
join them in this Satyagraha.
They were so desperate that a
number of them, including two women, were determined to immolate themselves outside the D.D.A. office. With great difficulty
we at Manushi managed to persuade them to have
patience and seek your intervention.
The
Nehru place vendors are among the most harassed and tyrannized of all vendors
in Delhi. They have been subjected to numerous
evictions time and again ever since Manushi began
monitoring the D.D.A. complex in 1999. Ironically enough, the assaults on the
vendors increased manifold since the announcement of a New Policy for Delhi
Street Vendors announced by the then Prime Minister, Shri
Atal Bihari Vajpayee in
August 2001. On the 31st of January 2002, the Nehru Place vendors were told that the Prime Minister
is to inaugurate Astha Kunj
near Nehru
Place. Therefore, security arrangements required their removal for a
day. They were assured that they could resume their business the next day. But
when they came back the next day they saw that their stalls had been bulldozed
and they found their only source of income destroyed. For 4 years the hawkers went from pillar to
post seeking rehabilitation. Five of the vendors died during this period from
poverty related diseases. Severe
financial hardships were faced by all of them. Many had to mortgage their
modest tenements and whatever assets they had in order to survive on loans.
After
five long years of negotiations with the Vice Chairman, D.D.A, Manushi was able to get the DDA to agree in 9th
October 2006 that
they would sit in a disciplined manner under garden umbrellas provided by Manushi. (Photos
above) They stuck to their promise of observing discipline but the D.D.A. did
not keep its word. They were repeatedly harassed and removed. Finally, on they
were forcibly and permanently evicted on April 19th, 2008 on the ground that Nehru Place has been declared a No Hawking Zone..
The
plight of Nehru Place vendors is illustrative of the total
absence of any due process in clearing and relocating vendors all over Delhi. According to the Master Plan of Delhi, Nehru Place has been expressly named as a District
Centre that must incorporate hawking sites. The National Policy also states that urban planning should ensure
that hawking zones are created around "Natural Markets" and in
commercial complexes because vendors are an integral part of shopping centers.
Nehru Place has for years accommodated 400-500 vendors
at any given time and has enough space to do so in the 100-135 feet wide
corridors in the various plazas. There is no question of hawkers blocking
traffic simply because there is no traffic inside the complex. They don't
inconvenience pedestrian either because of the wide pathways that are there.
And yet, it has been declared to be a Zero Tolerance Zone for vendors.
Those
who are under Manushi discipline are specially
targeted because from them the police and D.D.A. employees cannot exhort the
high bribes given by others. The enclosed photographs clearly show that a large
number of vendors are allowed to operate chaotically because they are ready to
pay Rs.
500 per day per stall as protection money. Two or
three vendors share this expenditure because no one vendor can afford to pay Rs. 500 per day on their own. Since the touts felt inhibited to demand
such sums from those who operated under Manushi
discipline, they were made to pay a 'modest' sum of Rs.
50 a day. This is highly resented by the bribe collecting mafia. In a recent
order, the Delhi High Court had ruled in the favour
of Manushi related vendors who alone have been
removed. The D.D.A. made a commitment to the Court that they would be given
appropriate space. But that commitment is being brazenly violated.
Similar clearance operations are being carried out
all over the city, to strengthen the hands of those who run protection rackets.
All this while an elaborate drama is being enacted to create hawking zones and
issue tehbazaris.
Several
months ago, you had agreed to the idea that the entire business of carving out
hawking zones and allotting hawking licenses would be rationalized. The Chief
Secretary of Delhi, Mr. Rakesh Mehta in his report to you
and the Prime Minister, has also recommended the setting up of an independent
Commission for the purpose of identifying genuine vendors. The promised photo
census has not been undertaken. Most of the ward-vending committees are filled
with vested interests and local mafia dons who enjoy political patronage. They
are going about the business in the most chaotic and arbitrary manner. The Supreme Court has been given August 30th
as the deadline for completing the process of tehbazari
allocation and sites. Without any transparency and fair play in selecting tehbazari beneficiaries, the entire operation has become
farcical and corruption friendly.
This
will mean the further strengthening of Goonda Raj in all the bazaars of Delhi. The manner in which the Model Hawker
Market pilot project at Sewa Nagar has been taken
over through force and fraud, by the local mafia of Kotla
Mubarakpur, is proof that criminal elements in
collaboration with the corrupt officials and police are determined to maintain
their control over the new as well as old hawking zones.
We appeal to you to:
- Ensure that Nehru Place vendors are provided appropriate spaces to earn
their livelihood. They are in fact willing to take care of cleanliness in
the entire Nehru
Place
complex through voluntary contributions, if provided security of livelihood.
- Ensure that pending the finalisation
of hawking zones, vendors are not uprooted on flimsy pretexts anywhere in
Delhi and that major commercial centers like Nehru Place are not declared
as Non Hawking Zones because it goes against the basic grain of the
National Policy for Street Vendors.
- Expeditiously appoint the Independent Commission
to oversee that the task of carving out hawking zones and granting tehbazari actually benefits genuine and deserving
vendors, as recommended by the Rakesh Mehta
Committee.
Yours
sincerely,
Madhu Purnima Kishwar
For Manushi Sangathan
June 5, 2008