Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (PS/NP)

Mangalore, Jun 15: The district JD(S) has decided to join hands with street vendors association affiliated to CITU against functioning of ‘Tiger’ and their forceful eviction, said JD(S) state general secretary M G Hegde at a press conference held on Tuesday June 14.

In the country around 2 crore people are engaged in street vending and 10 crore people  depend on them, Hegde said. It is not  prohibited in any other city. A lot of street vendors earn their living on the streets in Bangalore. It is a means of livelihood for the poor, he added. He stressed on the fact that unlike other countries where the economy depends only on share market, in India  the contribution of poor and street vendors is predominant. The real development is not in building concrete roads and shopping malls but in providing two square meals to the poor.

MG Hegde compared MCC’s ‘Tiger’ to a pig in a field which damages the crops of farmers. This 'pig' is ruining the daily bread of about 300 street vendors and their families.

He  urged the mayor and the MCC commissioner at least to make arrangements for alternatives before evacuating them from central market area. This act of MCC is the height of cruelty which has even kept these vendors from admitting their children to the school, Hegde said.

JD(S) is ready to fight on legal provision and will also engage in vending on streets. "If vendors are not allowed to run their business, let them evacuate our ‘business’ too," he challenged.