Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation has begun distributing certificates and identity cards to 15,013 eligible street vendors identified in its 2022 survey, four years after the civic body recorded their details and amid renewed work to establish designated hawker zones across the city.
The distribution began on Wednesday, October 21, at the A and C regional offices. The municipal corporation plans to complete the distribution to eligible vendors across all 10 regional office areas by October 27, according to officials quoted by Sakal – Pune.
The move covers vendors operating carts, stalls, temporary kiosks and other forms of street businesses. The civic body has also started identifying and earmarking locations for hawker zones at the regional-office level. The Street Vendors Federation had proposed 120 locations, with 15 sites in each of the city’s earlier eight regional office areas.
The 2022 survey found 19,792 street vendors in Pimpri-Chinchwad. Of these, 15,013 were found eligible with business licences. Despite the survey, certificates and identity cards had not been issued, leaving vendors without formal documentation while municipal enforcement continued against encroachments and allegedly unauthorised stalls, carts and kiosks.
The delay had also created a gap between the city’s street-vending policy and its implementation. The municipal corporation had previously conducted surveys in 2012, 2014 and 2016, but action to create hawker zones did not move forward. The 2022 survey was conducted again as part of efforts to address encroachments on footpaths, roads and other public spaces while creating designated areas for vendors.
The Street Vendors Federation challenged the enforcement action and sought effective implementation of the street-vendors law, the creation of hawker zones and the issue of identity cards and certificates to eligible vendors. Following the petition, the Supreme Court granted a stay on the action and directed the municipal administration to issue the certificates and identity cards and determine hawker zones, the report said.
Sitaram Bahure, deputy commissioner in the municipal corporation’s land and estates department, said locations for hawker zones were being finalised and that certificates were being distributed to eligible beneficiaries in all 10 regional office areas. The civic administration has not announced the final list of locations or the operating conditions for each proposed zone in the information available in the report.
For vendors, the certificates could provide formal recognition of businesses that have often operated under the uncertainty of periodic enforcement. Irfan Chaudhary, a tea and breakfast seller from Nigdi, said he had been in the business for 30 years and had received a certificate after the survey. He said he had been operating under the Madhukarrao Pawale flyover for the past three years.
Kashinath Nakhate, president of the Street Vendors Federation, said the distribution would help provide official recognition to registered vendors after years of delay. The immediate administrative task now is to complete the certificate and identity-card process by October 27 and finalise the sites that will form Pimpri-Chinchwad’s hawker zones.
