Overview
- The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation began distributing QR code–enabled identity cards after a citywide verification drive that the Bombay High Court ordered and that ran through June 26.
- Civic officials identified about 99,433 eligible vendors from roughly 102,426 applications and plan to issue ID cards to around 99,000–99,345 hawkers citywide.
- Authorities allowed vendors to use old police challans, BMC penalty receipts and seizure records as proof of long-term vending during verification, turning past enforcement papers into supporting documentation.
- Implementation problems emerged quickly, with several newly certified hawkers fined or prevented from vending because some police units have not yet recognised the new QR IDs and the Town Vending Committee has not finalised hawking zones or pitch allocations.
- The programme rests on the 2014 Street Vendors Act and a 2020 draft hawkers’ policy that stalled during the pandemic and the absence of elected corporators, and its next test will be whether the police and the Town Vending Committee issue clear operational rules to stop harassment and assign vending spots.