Members of the Beedi Badi Vyaparigala Horata Samiti staging a protest in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
| Photo Credit: SUDHAKARA JAIN
Thousands of street vendors, whose livelihoods were uprooted after the city corporations launched a drive to reclaim pedestrian space, gathered at Freedom Park on Wednesday. Markets across the city observed a bandh as vendors demanded an immediate halt to the eviction drive until town vending committees (TVCs) are constituted, and the provisions of the Street Vendors Act are implemented. Hundreds of women joined the protest, many saying that street vending is their only means of survival after being abandoned by their husbands, becoming widowed, or left to raise children alone. “Businesses don’t run in empty spaces. They run where people are. How can we simply shift somewhere else?” argued Susheela, who has sold vegetables in Ragigudda for years. “The same product has a different value depending on the location and the customers. People know us because we have been sitting in the same place for years. They come looking for us.” “They hadn’t even reached our area yet, but I removed my own stall out of fear,” said Varalakshmi, who ran a tiffin stall in Banashankari. “I used to earn around ₹500 a day. Now there’s nothing. The street vendors survey is not complete, and vending zones haven’t even been marked. Without doing any of that, how can they throw us out?” Khushboo, another vendor from Ragigudda, pointed to her cart and said it cost her ₹20,000, but was now destroyed by civic officials. “Even if they remove us, we could have tried something else. But after taking away and destroying our carts, where are we supposed to find money to start again?” Vendors argued that the eviction drive is illegal because mandatory procedures under the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, have been ignored. The law requires a comprehensive survey, issuance of vending certificates, and functioning TVCs before any no-vending zones can be declared or vendors evicted. Many alleged that civic officials not only destroyed their livelihoods but also confiscated goods without following due process, pushing already vulnerable families further into debt. “We voted for this government believing it understood the struggles of poor people. Instead, it has declared war on our livelihoods,” several protesters said. Following the protest, a delegation of street vendors met GBA Chief Commissioner M. Maheshwar Rao, who told them that the issue would be discussed in detail after consultations with Bengaluru Development Minister Krishna Byre Gowda. Published - July 08, 2026 10:06 pm IST
