By Express News Service HYDERABAD: Taking a serious view of eviction of street vendors and hawkers by the GHMC and police in Greater Hyderabad limits, Telangana Mission for Elimination of Poverty in Municipal Areas (TSMEPMA) has issued instructions to the GHMC not to evict them from their present location till all the eligible urban street vendors are relocated to the identified vending zones. A letter to this effect was sent to the GHMC Commissioner DS Lokesh Kumar by TSMEPMA Director T K Sreedevi recently, urging him to issue instructions to the officials concerned and not to harass the street vendors. Harassment of street vendors and hawkers by officials has been going on in violation of the Street Vendors (Protection of livelihood and regulation of Street Vending Act) 2014. In the light of problems being faced by the street vendors, Telangana Street Vendors and Hawkers Union president S Venkata Mohan made a representation to the Chief Secretary, Principal Secretaries of MAUD and home departments on the issue. He told Express that local GHMC officials and traffic police were violating the Street Vendors Act 2014 and harassing the vendors, hawkers by evicting and relocating them and also imposing penalties. The government has already decided that until all the eligible urban street vendors are relocated in the identified vending zones, they should not be evicted from the present location. Further, as per the Street Vendors Act, no street vendor should be evicted or relocated till the completion of the survey of the existing vendors and issuance of Certificate of Vending (COV) to them. The implementation of the programme lies with TVC under the overall supervision of the respective civic bodies. Venkat Mohan said that street vendors play a key role and form a big segment of unorganised sector.

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