A verification drive by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has revealed that 3,167 authorised hawkers identified in the city’s 2014 survey have passed away. The findings emerged as part of the civic body’s ongoing initiative to issue QR code-enabled identity cards to authorised street vendors.
The BMC is now considering a policy to transfer vending licences to eligible family members while creating a verified database of nearly 1 lakh authorised hawkers. The move is also expected to strengthen action against illegal street vending across Mumbai.
The QR code identity card initiative began in May this year. Under the exercise, all 99,345 hawkers declared eligible in the 2014 survey were asked to visit their respective ward offices for identity verification.
During the verification process, officials found that 3,167 authorised vendors had died since the original survey. The findings were presented before the BMC’s Law Committee, which recommended introducing a policy to transfer licences to the legal heirs of deceased vendors.
“In many cases, the deceased vendors had not specified nominees who could inherit the licences. We have asked civic officials to formulate a standard operating procedure to identify and verify the immediate next of kin before transferring the licence,” said Diksha Karkar, Chairperson of the BMC’s Law Committee.
So far, the BMC has issued around 48,000 QR code-enabled identity cards. Officials said the highest number of verifications has been completed in Dadar, followed by Colaba, Churchgate, and Goregaon. During the process, each hawker’s identity, survey number, and vending location are verified.
The QR code cards will allow the BMC and Mumbai Police to instantly verify whether a vendor is authorised, making it easier to identify and act against illegal hawkers.
The exercise is also linked to the implementation of Mumbai’s long-pending hawkers’ policy. Once verification is completed, the Town Vending Committee (TVC) will identify and allot designated vending pitches and hawking zones to regulate street vending and reduce encroachments on public spaces.
The 2014 survey was conducted under the Street Vendors Act, and although a draft hawkers’ policy was prepared in 2020, its implementation was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the absence of an elected civic body after the BMC was superseded in 2022.
“The draft policy was prepared in 2020, but the pandemic delayed its implementation. Since the elected body was dissolved in 2022, the process remained stalled. We resumed work on it only after corporators returned earlier this year,” a civic official said.
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