Ahead of the election to the Town Vending Committee in the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), the Chennai Small Vendors Association has raised multiple concerns. While speaking to the media on Tuesday, April 25, the Association’s general secretary MV Krishnan alleged that the election will not be democratic since prevailing issues such as an alleged discrepancy in the number of small vendors identified by the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), non-issuance of identity cards for identified small vendors, and insufficient number of zonal representatives, are yet to be resolved.
The Town Vending Committee will be constituted under Rule 11 of the Tamil Nadu Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Rules, 2015. The 15-member committee will be headed by the GCC commissioner. Six of the 15 members will be representatives of town vendors. The Committee is expected to work alongside elected vendors and government officials who will be nominated by the GCC commissioner, with the stated aim of safeguarding the interests of street vendors. It will be taking decisions regarding the regulation of street vending in Chennai.
The GCC had identified over 35,000 small vendors in the city for issuing identity cards that should be produced as proof for voting in the election. However, Krishnan said, the Corporation authorities have only issued around 23,000 identity cards and not all the issued cards have been distributed yet. According to Krishnan, when the Small Vendors Association asked for the number of cards that are still with zonal officers, the GCC couldn’t produce a number.
Krishnan added, “This time, the Corporation has said that vendors who haven’t received identity cards can use their Aadhaar cards for voting. But the authorities won’t be able to verify if the people voting with Aadhaar cards are small vendors or not.”
Pointing to the alleged discrepancies in the GCC’s list of small vendors, he said, “According to the count that GCC has published, there are no small vendors in Chief Minister MK Stalin’s Kolathur constituency. However, our Association has identified 220 small vendors from Kolathur.”
Until 2018, when the last election was conducted, six representatives each were elected from the 15 zones in GCC. Hence, there were 90 elected leaders of small vendors who represented Chennai city. However, following the Madras High Court’s directions in 2022, the zones have been clubbed and only six persons will represent over 35,000 small vendors. Krishnan reacted, “Since we will only have six leaders, it will become very difficult for individual vendors’ issues to be addressed.”
The Association members had protested on April 11 against the Corporation conducting elections before resolving these concerns. However, the civic body refused to postpone the date.