Hyderabadi Nari Shakti is angry, unhappy

Hyderabad: The battleground is ready and the voters are busy analysing what they should do? Whom they should support? Which party is promising what? Which party had done what? How good or bad their MLA is and so on.

To know the ground reality, Hans India interacted with women vendors in different parts of the city to have an insight into their assessment regarding the direction of the wind that had just begun to flow.

Many women street vendors expressed their displeasure as the administration failed to provide the promised assistance to make their profession safe and profitable. They said no identity cards were issued and this gave enough opportunity for the authorities to either levy heavy challans, collect mamools or remove their small kiosks hitting their livelihood. The authorities promised setting up of vending zones. “We will certainly register our anger and protest at the time of polling they said.”

It may be recalled that around 1.65 lakh street vendors were identified by GHMC out of which 20 to 30 percent were women. The state government claims that all the registered vendors have been handed over identity cards, which indicates that the vendors are from a particular area and can sell their commodities, but the ground reality is that government failed to give them the cards and also they are many vendors who do have ration cards.

Surekha, a street vendor at Secunderabad, said, “ The Street Vendor Act has not been fully implemented. Only a handful of vendors were benefited. Majority have been denied all the benefits that would have followed if the scheme was effectively implemented. They would have even got loans if they were registered as street vendors. All appeals and representations to local representatives fell on deaf ears. I will cast my vote for the political party that assures to attend to our problems,” she said.

“We are vexed by listening to all the false promises whether it is officials or leaders. There is no safety and security provided to us. The facilities at the vending zones which have been created are inadequate. We are not eligible for any welfare measure including 2BHK houses,” Uma (name changed) said.

“Recently state government have announced financial assistance of Rs 25000 each for street vendors but till date no vendor received any financial help from the government.

We are clear in our minds, we will vote for a party which can create confidence that they will resolve our issues, said another women vendor.