Women vendors seek notification of vending zones in Itanagar Capital Region

ITANAGAR, 2 Jun: Members of the All Capital Complex Street Vendor Association, affiliated to the National Hawkers Federation, in a representation to Itanagar MLA Techi Kaso requested that he recommend to the competent authority of the Itanagar Capital Region (ICR) district administration to notify proper vending zones in the ICR.

The vendors who met the MLA said that the vendors of the ICR started to operate their respective businesses under the provision of the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 and the Arunachal Pradesh Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2018, with effect from 2015.

Various vending zones were earlier notified at different locations of the capital region, but later, Vending Zones 2 and 3, near the clock tower and the Bank of Baroda, respectively, in Itanagar were dismantled by the district magistrate-cum-highway administrator on 4 March, 2022.

“Due to such evictions, so many women vendors having valid certificates have been rendered jobless and are facing hardship as they have not been given reallot-ments,” the women said.

The team also met Deputy Commissioner Talo Potom and Itanagar Municipal Corporation (IMC) Assistant Commissioner Datum Gadi in this regard. The women vendors said that the DC informed them that “the vending zone issue within ICR is subject matter of the IMC.” On being approached by the team, APWWS (CEC) president Kani Nada Maling and assistant secretary-general Taku Yasap accompanied the vendors in the meetings.

“Many women vendors are the sole bread earners of their families, and their families depend on them for livelihood. So it is important to have them relocated to designated vending zones,” Maling said, and appealed to the MLA and the IMC to address the grievance of the women vendors at the earliest.