Kejriwal playing with street vendors’ sentiments: Gupta

New Delhi, Sep 24 (IANS) Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta on Tuesday accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of playing with the sentiments of street vendors and fooling them to cover up for his inaction for the last 55 months.

"He has made an unrealistic promise of providing certificate and licence within a record period. His sympathies with rehri-patriwalas' (street vendors) is to cover up for his inaction for the last 55 months," Gupta told media.

He also said that Kejriwal asked the three MCDs to complete the survey within one month.

"The time-frame of 30 days seems to be unrealistic particularly keeping in view the ensuing festival season. Kejriwal is likely to shift the blame to local bodies when the survey is not completed within the given time-frame," he said.

Claiming to be the first city to implement the Street Vending Act, 2014, Kejriwal on Tuesday announced that the city government would legalise the street vendors and hawkers and would provide them protection in the national capital.

"Delhi will become the first state to implement the Act. Under it, 28 town vending committees have been set up and a notification has been issued. The election for the committees too have been done," Kejriwal told media.

The committees, each having 30 members, have 12 vendors or hawkers as their team, while rest of the members are officials, town planners, police and traffic police, and RWAs and market association, and officials from the health department he said.

Kejriwal said the MCDs and the civic bodies have been asked to conduct a survey of vendors through their respective town vending committees.