Shillong, Aug 3: The Meghalaya and Greater Shillong Progressive Hawkers and Street Vendors Association (MGSPHSVA) is in no mood to lay down quietly but will continue for the rights of hawkers and street vendors as it sees fit.
The association won a small battle last week after a protest on August 1 led the Shillong Municipal Board (SMB) to call for a meeting of the Provisional Town Vending Committee (PTVC) on August 6. The committee had not met since June and the MGSPHSVA wants it to examine several issues.
In a release today, MGSPHSVA general secretary Shane Thabah said that the association has made four detailed submissions to the special officer appointed by the High Court, the Deputy Commissioner and PTVC chairperson to highlight “the many ways in which the Street Vendors Act 2014 has been deliberately undermined including in the unlawful and forceful relocation of hawkers from Khyndailad to the MUDA parking lot on July 23”, which it said, was carried out by the SMB “in complete violation of due process, the High Court order dated July 3, 2025 and the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014.”
The action was taken without consultation with the hawkers associations and the PTVC and lacked transparency and preparedness, “which has left genuine, long-standing vendors in a state of uncertainty and distress and raises grave concerns about the functioning, intent and accountability of the SMB,” Thabah added.
He listed the primary concerns of the MGSPHSVA and its members, including the absence of a final list of licensed vendors. The association has questioned how the SMB arrived at its list of vendors, claiming that many genuine ones were left off and many shopowners were wrongly issued with Certificates of Vending (CoVs).
Thabah also said that the July 23 eviction was notified via WhatsApp in the early morning of that day, giving hawkers only a few hours to vacate. While the state government has patted itself on the back for giving an entire floor of the MUDA parking lot for the vendors, the MGSPHSVA said that the space remains under construction, with no basic infrastructure like water, toilets, waste disposal or safe electrical fittings.
“The stalls are unfit for diverse trades and were constructed without any consultation with vendors or PTVC representatives,” Thabah said, while questioning the allotment process, which was carried out through a “last minute” lucky draw that caused “mass confusion, duplicate allotments and absence of accountability.”
More than 100 vendors who had been surveyed by the SMB have not received licences and food vendors, who, he said, were promised locations in front of MUDA have been pushed into the parking lot where conditions are “unhygienic and unsuitable”.
The MGSPHSVA wants “re-spacing” of the Khyndailad area, a participatory re-design and restructuring of the MUDA site, issuance of CoVs to all surveyed and eligible hawkers and a rapid re-survey to include those left out, establishment of a transparent grievance redressal mechanism, publication of all vendor-related data in the public domain, disclosure of expenditures and contracts related to the MUDA site and safeguards against the corruption and resale of stalls.
He also noted that the PTVC has been overseeing claims and objections for CoVs only in Khyndailad, which makes efforts by the SMB to issue CoVs in other parts of Shillong “arbitrary and illegal” as the formal process has not begun in any other area.
“This relocation drive represents not just a failure of governance but a direct attack on the rights, dignity and survival of street vendors in Shillong,” Thabah stated. The MGSPHSVA “categorically rejects the process in its current form and demands immediate, corrective, and participatory action. Our repeated efforts to cooperate with authorities and contribute meaningfully to planning have been ignored. The result is displacement, disorder, and deep distress among hundreds of vendors who have earned their livelihoods with honesty and resilience.”
