New Delhi: The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) is in the process of digitising the records of licensed street vendors in areas under its jurisdiction and is planning to issue them smart cards soon for easy verification.
At present there are 961 licensed street vendors operating with NDMC's nod and the civic body has constituted a town vending committee to conduct a survey for updating the rolls. "The inspectors conducting site visits
and monitoring the functioning of these vendors have a tough time verifying them as the hard copy of the documents are the only means to authenticate that they are license holders," a senior NDMC official said.
"Also, sometimes the licensed vendors have their nominees running the business who do not have required documents during these inspections.
"Hence, we have come up with the idea of digitising all the records and issuing them smart cards," he said.
Street vending has been a perennial issue for municipal corporations in the city.
While civic bodies face a tough time managing them, the vendors themselves live in fear of losing their livelihoods as their goods are frequently seized by officials for illegally
occupying public space.
Hence, the system of issuing licenses was put in place by NDMC for the tehbazari vendors.
"The proposed smart card will have a chip with all details of the license holder including name, age, address, contact number and photograph.
In case the person is giving away the license to a nominee, he will have to inform NDMC and the nominee will be issued a separate smart card having his name, the official said.
"The inspectors conducting field visits will be given card readers wherein they can simply swipe the smart card and verify the details.
"The space allotted to a vendor will also be mentioned in the smart card," he added.
The council has already floated tenders for the project under which all relevant records of the licensed vendors will be digitised in first phase and smart cards will be issued in the second phase.
Meanwhile, the Town Vending Committee (TVC) which is being constituted will have 12 street vendor representatives while the rest would be nominated.
It will decide the norms regarding relocation of street vendors, including where they will be sent, what shops will be allowed and which trade will be permitted, among others.
