The Delhi High Court on Thursday ordered the city police and the North Delhi Municipal Corporation to conduct drives for removing all unauthorised hawkers and vendors from no-hawking zones of Chandni Chowk and Subhash Marg.
It asked the SHO of Kotwali police station and the Deputy Commissioner of the North body to conduct the drives and file an action-taken report within a week.
The order came on a plea by Chandni Chowk Sarv Vyapar Mandal seeking direction to the authorities to remove illegal hawkers and vendors from the no-hawking and no-squatting areas in Chandni Chowk, which has recently undergone redevelopment.
Earlier, the court had directed the Delhi police to take steps to install CCTV cameras in the area to check encroachment on pavements and walkways. “Regulated hawking and vending can address issues of pedestrian walkways being encroached, lack of hygiene, law and order, among others,” the HC had earlier said, directing the municipal corporation to prepare a street vending plan.
“A large population is unemployed and find it an easy and convenient way of earning their livelihood on a daily basis by undertaking hawking and vending activities and making their ends meet. Hawking and vending has also been recognised as a fundamental right,” the court had said.
“In our view, it is of utmost importance that the administration undertakes the task of preparing a plan in terms of Section 21 of The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood And Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, at the earliest so that the activity of hawking and vending can be properly regulated and it ceases to be a nuisance which presently it is,” the court had ordered.
