MANUSHI Hawker Market Project Gets Supreme Court Clearance
This article was first published in the print edition of Manushi Journal. (Issue-135, Mar-Apr 2003)
In issue number 124 of MANUSHI, we had published a report of a Jan Sunwayi (Public Hearing) of street vendors and hawkers organised by MANUSHI in May 2001. The subsequent campaign on behalf of this sector as well as the cycle rickshaw pullers and operators of Delhi led to the announcement of a new reformed policy framework for these two sectors by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayi. However, we faced tough resistance from both the political as well as the bureaucratic establishment in our attempts to get that policy implemented. We have kept our readers informed about some of MANUSHI’S follow up work on these two fronts.These are mere glimpses into a very complex battle. Once we have concrete results to show, we hope to tell the full story and the many important political lessons we have learnt in the process, including valuable insights into the nature and functioning of the Indian state. In the meantime, we try keeping Manushi friends informed about all major developments. In the last issue of MANUSHI, we had provided our readers with an update on our efforts on behalf of the cycle rickshaw sector, which has so far produced only marginal results. At the moment, that battle is being fought mainly through the courts. However, in the case of street vendors, we withdrew our petition from the Court and instead tried persuading the administration through a variety of means to look afresh at the issue. Fortunately, this has worked better than the legalistic route. This report provides an update on MANUSHI’S work on the vendors’ front…