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In Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar, hawkers struggle to get PM loan meant to help them. Red tape is king

Hawkers in Delhi market can’t get street vendor loan as NDMC doesn’t consider them legitimate, but civic body also hasn’t done survey to identify valid vendors in 3 yrs.

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New Delhi: Geeta and Reshma, friends and fellow street vendors in Delhi’s bustling Sarojini Nagar Market, live together in a ramshackle jhuggi near Laxmi Bai Nagar. Tattered plastic sheets held up by wooden sticks act as walls and roofing, and the hardened soil is the floor.

The two women each scrape together about Rs 100-300 a day selling plants, and hope to secure a loan under the central government’s PM SVANidhi scheme, launched in 2020 to help street vendors affected by the pandemic.

But the system that’s supposed to work in their favour seems to be stacked against them.

Like many other street vendors, Geeta and Reshma are barely literate and struggle to keep pace with ‘Digital India’. Reshma has a basic feature phone, but she doesn’t know much about its functionalities or even her own number. Geeta is eager to prove her identity, but her documentation is slightly awry — her Aadhaar card shows her to be 36 years old, but her voter ID lists her age as 39. Neither woman even knows how to apply for the loan.

Street vendors Reshma (left) and Geeta (right) outside their jhuggi | Regina Mihindukulasuriya | ThePrint

But what they do know is that to qualify for the loan, disbursed by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, they must first be recognised as legitimate vendors by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), under which Sarojini Nagar Market comes.

However, the NDMC, a statutory civic body under the aegis of the central government, is yet to conduct a survey to identify ‘legitimate’ vendors. This means that most vendors in NDMC areas struggle to prove their eligibility for the loan.

Geeta and Reshma have hit this wall too.

Geeta shows ThePrint laminated NDMC challans that she has paid from 2013 to 2021 as proof of vending at Sarojini Nagar market, but the documents are unlikely to get her very far.

Geeta's challans
Street vendor Geeta’s laminated challans are unlikely to help her get one step closer to securing a PM SVANidhi loan | Regina Mihindukulasuriya | ThePrint

While the rules under the Delhi Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Scheme 2019 state that “evidence of being genuinely engaged in street vending” includes “challans” (receipts for payment of penalties), among other things, the NDMC has not been accepting these as valid proof.

Asked about difficulties vendors faced in proving their status, an NDMC official tells ThePrint on condition of anonymity that the only thing that a challan proved was that rules had been broken at some point.

“A challan is essentially a receipt of paying a fine for circumventing rules. So how can that be considered proof of vending? We have never stopped any vendor from applying for the loan. All authorised vendors have got the loan,” he says.

Another NDMC official, also asking not to be named, claims the loan has been given to all “authorised” vendors. He claimed that the NDMC had even held workshops to help vendors apply for the loan.

ThePrint emailed NDMC for an official response on 28 April, but is yet to receive a reply.

Vendors speaking to ThePrint say the best solution would be if the NDMC finally conducts a survey of vendors, pending since 2019, and provides them with the stamp of legitimacy they need to get government benefits such as the PM SVANidhi loan.

But Mananjay Mishra, an advocate who has been representing NDMC since 2015 in scores of petitions filed by street vendors, has a different take.

He claims that though there has indeed been a delay, the vendors, too, have drawn out the process by approaching the courts time and again.


Also read: Only 2.21% loans went to street vendors by private banks under PM SVANidhi scheme in 3 years


Struggle for PM SVANidhi loans in Sarojini Nagar

With a jumble of shops and makeshift stalls lining its pavements and alleys, Sarojini Nagar Market is one of Delhi’s busiest shopping hubs. But in the months of lockdown, the footfalls disappeared and the vendors, who are mostly daily wage earners, were left without a living. Street hawkers pretty much everywhere else also suffered the same fate.

It was for vendors like these to restart their businesses that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs started the PM Street Vendors’ AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) in June 2020.

Sarojini Nagar Market vendors
Street vendors just outside the main Sarojini Nagar Market area | Regina Mihindukulasuriya | ThePrint

Under the scheme, vendors can get a collateral free working loan capital of Rs 10,000 rupees, repayable within 12 months.

After successful repayment of the first loan, the vendor is next eligible for a loan of Rs 20,000, and then Rs 50,000.

In theory, the PM SVANidhi scheme makes it easy for any street vendor to qualify for the loan.

The first step for an applicant is to prove their status as a legitimate vendor.

If a vendor doesn’t have a vending certificate or ID card, they may seek some documentation from the urban local body (ULB), such as a letter of recommendation (LOR).

In bold text, the PM SVANidhi loan brochure says that urban local bodies “may adopt any other alternate way for identifying such vendors with a view to ensure that all the eligible vendors are positively covered.”

Vendors can apply for a LOR as well as the loan on the PM SVANidhi website.

But many vendors at NDMC’s in-demand Sarojini Nagar Market struggle to get the SVANidhi loan since they are not recognised as legitimate vendors and don’t receive the much-coveted letter of recommendation.

The same issue does not seem to be as prevalent in zones under the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), however.

NDMC vs MCD

In 2021, advocate Dharmendra Sharma filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Delhi High Court on behalf of Sarojini Nagar street vendors seeking to avail themselves of their right to get a loan under the PM SVANidhi scheme.

When asked about this, he claims that while challans can be used as “proof of vending history” in Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) areas, which come under the Delhi government, this was not the case in NDMC zones.

The SVANidhi website, too, shows poor statistics for the NDMC. As of 28 April 2023, the dashboard showed that the South Delhi Municipal Corporation had approved 74,345 out of 75,525 LOR applications— a 98 per cent approval rate.

In contrast, the NDMC has approved only 996 LOR applications out of 4,614 received in the same period — a 22 per cent approval rate.

“Vendors in the NDMC have more difficulty getting the letter of recommendation than vendors in the MCD,” declares Shri Ram, a town vending committee (TVC) member of the South Delhi MCD Central Zone, Lajpat Nagar.

Shri Ram, a town vending committee (TVC) member of the South Delhi MCD Central Zone, Lajpat Nagar
Shri Ram, a town vending committee (TVC) member of the South Delhi MCD Central Zone, talks about the issues assailing street vendors | Regina Mihindukulasuriya | ThePrint

The town vending committee of an urban local body, whether MCD or NDMC, is responsible for conducting a vendor survey and determining legitimate vendors.

Delhi presently has 28 such TVCS, each with 30 members, including municipal body officials, representatives from the police and NGOs, as well as 12 street vendors elected by registered vendors from their area.

Ram tells ThePrint that he has created a physical paper application for vendors seeking a letter of recommendation. When approached by an applicant, he fills up and signs the form.

After this, the vendor then takes the letter to the relevant MCD office to get the letter of recommendation in order to apply for the SVANidhi loan.

MCD letter template
The letter template MCD’s Shri Ram uses to help vendors apply for a letter of recommendation | Regina Mihindukulasuriya | ThePrint

 “Of course there are problems in my MCD Zone,” says Shri Ram. “But NDMC has more problems than MCD.”

Dinesh Kumar Dixit has been a Sarojini Nagar Market vendor since 1990 and is also a member of the NDMC area’s town vending committee.

He explains that the rules and possibilities are not the same in MCD and NDMC areas.

For one, he says, the NDMC would not recognise a letter from a TVC member as sufficient to provide a letter of recommendation.

Dixit estimates there are about 1,000 vendors at Sarojini Nagar Market. He doesn’t know how many of them got an LOR from the NDMC, but he does say “very few vendors got the loan”.

TVC member Dinesh Kumar Dixit
Vendor and TVC member Dixit posing with documents that prove he is a legitimate vendor | Regina Mihindukulasuriya | ThePrint

A long fight for recognition

Their main hurdle, many vendors say, is getting the NDMC to recognise them officially —  which is something that can help them claimgovernment benefits, secure a permanent spot, and get protection from eviction drives.

Take, for instance, 39-year-old Munna, who goes by just that one name according to his Aadhaar card. A resident of southwest Delhi’s Manglapuri, he sells dupattas in an open-air hawker spot— a business that his father had started in the 1980s.

Munna, who dropped out of school in class 3, says he earns Rs 300-500 a day.

Asked if he has applied for the PM SVANidhi loan, he says he doesn’t have the necessary jankari (information) about which banks to approach and how institutional processes work.

His immediate concern, he adds, is being recognised by the NDMC as a legitimate vendor with a permanent spot. Munna claims he wrote a letter in 2015 to the DCP of Hauz Khas seeking protection from eviction, but received no response.

Others have taken the fight to court, like 66-year-old Satish Kumar Pushkarna.

He says he was slotted by the NDMC for recognition as a legitimate vendor in 2012 but failed to get a letter of recommendation, and hence the loan.

street vendor Satish Kumar Pushkarna
Street vendor Satish Kumar Pushkarna outside his makeshift selling station in Sarojini Nagar Market | Regina Mihindukulasuriya | ThePrint

Pushkarna was among the scores of vendors across NDMC who approached the Delhi High Court in 2011 seeking protection from eviction.

These cases resulted in a 2012 court order, which said that the NDMC could allot squatting space to vendors via a lottery. Thereafter, show court records, the NDMC prepared a list of 628 eligible vendors across areas under its jurisdiction, including Sarojini Nagar.

However, the process dragged on and many of these applicants, including Pushkarna, never received their permanent spot or vendor certificate.

Then, two years later, the central government enacted a new law to regulate street vendors and safeguard their rights— the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014.

Legally, when a new law is enacted, older judgments and government policies lose their prior significance.

The 2014 law stipulates that the relevant urban local body must establish a town vending committee (TVC) to conduct a survey of existing vendors in the area. The survey’s purpose is to identify vendors, certify the ‘legitimate’ ones among them, and allot them a vending spot.

Informed by this new law, the Delhi government prescribed a fresh set of rules to regulate street vendors — the Delhi Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Rules, 2017.

Subsequently, a town vending committee was established in the NDMC, and a vendor survey was carried out in 2018.

However, the Delhi government deemed the survey invalid because it was conducted prior to the issuance of a scheme outlining the proper procedure for conducting the vendor survey — the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Scheme, 2019.

Through this saga, it was vendors like Pushkarna who fell through the cracks.

Meanwhile, a group of vendors working at Sarojini Nagar Market petitioned the Delhi High Court last year. They asked that the NDMC’s TVC conduct the survey of vendors in compliance with the law, and also refrain from “harassing” them or removing their stalls in the interim.

In November 2022, the high court directed the NDMC’s TVC to undertake the survey, but the wait for relief continues for the petitioners.

Vendor Suresh Narayan Chobey
Vendor Suresh Narayan Chobey outside his clothing stall | Regina Mihindukulasuriya | ThePrint

One petitioner was Suresh Narayan Chobey, 51, who says he has been selling clothes in Sarojini Nagar for about 10 years. One of the reasons he is keen for the stamp of legitimacy is that he hopes to take out a PM SVANidhi loan.

Chobey told ThePrint he made two attempts to obtain a letter of recommendation for the SVANidhi loan.

The first attempt was made around 8-10 months ago, followed by a second try approximately two or three months ago. However, he claims that he did not receive any response from the NDMC on either occasion.

Vendor survey that never was

The crucial street vendor survey mandated by law holds the key to resolving the numerous requests from vendors seeking formal recognition and access to benefits such as the SVANidhi loan scheme.

However, the NDMC has yet to conduct the survey since the implementation of the 2019 Delhi government scheme for regulating street vendors. Compounding the issue is that NDMC officials do not acknowledge challans as valid proof of vending, despite the 2019 scheme explicitly stating that these may be used as evidence.

So, what’s behind the delay in conducting the survey?

One possible explanation is a “lack of accountability” on the part of the NDMC, which is “not an elected council but rather appointed by the central government”, according to advocate Prashant Narang, a senior fellow at the Delhi-based think tank Centre for Civil Society whose work focusses on laws and policies related to street vendors.

However, Mananjay Mishra, an advocate empanelled by the NDMC, also blames vendors for contributing to the delay due to their numerous lawsuits challenging the municipal body.

“It is correct that the central act came into force in 2014 and there has been a delay in implementing the act. So obviously there has been a delay on the part of all the stakeholders. The street vendors are also responsible due to the multiple rounds of litigations by them, challenging each and every exercise of the NDMC,” he tells ThePrint.

While there is a glimmer of hope with the NDMC convening a meeting of the town vending committee on 4 May to discuss the “Survey of Street Vendors and related issues”, similar tête-à-têtes have taken place in the past without the survey materialising. For instance, the TVC met in June 2021, but there was no concrete outcome.

However, Sarojini Nagar Market vendor and TVC member Dinesh Kumar Dixit is keeping his fingers crossed that the meeting is a sign that the survey will start soon.

“We are hoping the vendors here will be recognised as genuine people,” he says, “and after all these years and court cases they will get their rights, finally, at long last.”

With reporting inputs from Falguni Sharma

(Edited by Asavari Singh)


Also read: ‘0.01%’ street vendors from minority communities benefit from Centre’s loan scheme, finds RTI query


 

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