Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs (I/C), has stated that his Ministry iscommitted to provide enabling environment to the street vendors by taking up with the states to notify Rules and Schemes under the Act thus paving way for its implementation. Addressing the National Convention of NASVI (National Association of Street Vendors of India here today, the Housing and Urban Affairs Minister informed that hisministry is implementing the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana- National Urban Livelihood Mission (DAY-NULM) with seven components which is being implemented in the statutory towns of the country. The DAY-NULM aims to reduce poverty and vulnerability of the urban poor households and enables them to access gainful self- employment and skilled wage employment opportunities. Sh Arbind Singh, National Coordinator of NASVI, Sh Sanjay Kumar, Joint secretary and Mission Director, DAY-NULM and participants from all over the country were present at the function.Observing that most of the vendors involved in informal sector activities earlier faced a constant threat of eviction, removal, confiscation of goods and almost non-existent social security cover, Sh Puri informed that, to address these very issues and to promote pro-vending town planning, the parliament passed the landmark Act i.e. the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street vending) Act 2014.The Act provided for regulating street vending, certification of vending, harassment against unlawful eviction, rights and obligations of street vendors.
It also provided protection to the natural markets.The Act lays down an important role to Town Vending committees in the governance of provisions relating to protection of rights of street vendors. In the composition of Town Vending committees, street vendors’ representatives will be not less than 40% of the total strength of the Committee. Under the Act, respective states/ UTs have to notify Rules and Schemes for ensuring its implementation. So far 30 states/ UTs have notified their respective Rules and 21 States have notified their respective Schemes.Sh Puri further informed that the DAY-NULM addresses livelihood concerns of the urban street vendors by facilitating access to suitable spaces, institutional credit, social security and skills to the urban street vendors for accessing emerging market opportunities. Taking in account the importance of street vendors in the urban space, DAY-NULM has included Support to Urban Street Vendors as one of its components.Considering the importance of Street vending which has a prominent place in the urban supply chain by providing inexpensive and convenient access to goods and services to all segments of the population, up to 5% of the allocations under the Mission can be spent by State/ ULB for creation of infrastructure for street vendors.
Apart from the benefits under the Street Vendors component, street vendors can also take advantage of other components under the Mission.One such advantage is that Street vendors can access skill training under Skill Training programme of DAY-NULM.They can also take concessional loans @ 7% interest for setting up and expanding self-employment enterprises under Self-Employment Programme of DAY-NULM.There may be some street vendors who are homeless. Such persons can stay in the nearby shelter homes being run with the assistance of DAY-NULM.The female and handicapped street vendors can also form Self-Help Groups and take advantages under the Mission by accessing revolving fund and bank linkage loans and forming part of SHG federations.Appreciating the support of voluntary organizations like NASVI in creating supportive environment for street vendors to carry out their livelihood activity, Sh Puri observed that efforts made towards securing livelihood of street vendors through policy interventions, advocacy for changes in political- legal environment, dialogues with policy makers, administrators and planners, providing legal aids, capacity building of street vendor and sensitizing society about the issues of street vendors will help in providing an effective voice to the street vendors.