By IANS,
New Delhi : Now street vendors will have a permanent space to sell their wares, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said here Tuesday.
“We have plans for providing the street vendors of the city with permanent platforms, proper roofs and water connections,” Dikshit said while addressing hundreds of street vendors who had come from all over the country to attend the National conference on Integrating Vendors in Urban India.
“One of the major problems faced by vendors today is of space. So it will take us some time to provide the entire population of street vendors with platforms but we are aiming to start with targeting a few of them first,” she added.
According to the National Association of Street Vendors in India (NASVI), an NGO working with the street vendors, India has about 10 million street vendors – of whom almost 300,000 live and work in the national capital.
On complaints that the vendors were unable to sell their products because of the massive construction work, including the Delhi Metro work, Dikshit said: “The Delhi government will not let anybody lose their daily bread.”
She said Metro construction and other constructions were needed for a modern city.
The chief minister also said that despite starting a “Haat” – a market – at Andheria Mod in south Delhi five years back for the vendors to sell their wares, there have been no takers so far.
Union Women and Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath said the government has started Rashtriya Mahila Kosh or a national credit fund for financially helping women vendors in setting up their small businesses.
“India is a country of labourers and farmers, of which women are a very important part. The Rashtriya Mahila Kosh has funds and all the underprivileged women of the country can take advantage (from it),” Tirath said.