Bhagalpur civic body begins survey of street vendors

BHAGALPUR: With a view to providing licences to street vendors after proper registration and helping them get bank loans under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM), the Bhagalpur Municipal Corporation (BMC) has initiated a survey. The civic body is also preparing a socio-economic profile of the vendors in the city so that a proper space can be allotted to them at the proposed smart vending zones.
According to sources, there are nearly 9,000 street vendors, who are eking out a living by running small shops on the roadside in different BMC areas.Five teams of community resource persons have been formed to identify the genuine vendors, get them registered and provide trade licences to them.
The city manager at the BMC and nodal officer of the DAY-NULM, Ravish Chandra Verma, told this newspaper that efforts were being made to identify and register the street vendors after which they would be allotted space at the smart vending zones on a priority basis. “As many as 3,500 street vendors have been registered so far,” he added.
Referring to the DAY-NULM, Verma said it aimed to uplift the urban poor by enhancing sustainable livelihood opportunities through skill development.