After benefiting millions of deserving people, the government has launched the Ehsaas Street Hawkers initiative to ensure their socio-economic uplift.

In the first phase, the program is being piloted in Islamabad with a collaboration among the Capital Development Authority (CDA), Islamabad Capital Territory Administration (ICTA), the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI), and the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) under Mazdoor Ka Ehsaas program.

Under this initiative, around 200 vendors in Islamabad have received vending licenses issued by the municipality and new eco-friendly carts.

A beneficiary of the Ehsaas Streer Hawkers initiative from G-11, Syed Tahir Sardar, said that he was happy that any government heeded the concerns of the street vendors.

“This is for the first time in the history that any government paid heed to the concerns of the street vendors and took steps to ensure their respectable earning through providing them a proper legal space, license certificate, and new eco-friendly carts,” he said.

Sardar, who repairs watches, said that many other people like him have benefited from this scheme.

“Earlier, we were facing issues due to sitting illegally in the main markets and bearing loss whenever Capital Development Authority (CDA) launched encroachment operations,” he said.

He added that the owners of the shop in front of which they were sitting used to exploit them by increasing rent every now and then. “This program has saved us from all the pressures and helped expand our businesses,” he said.

Another beneficiary of the program, Zahid Javed, who is a garments vendor in the same sector, said the Street Hawker initiative has reduced their difficulties to a great extent.

“Earlier we were facing difficulty in displaying more and more stuff on the cart but this cart is more convenient to use,” he added.

Speaking about the initiative, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection, Dr. Sania Nishtar, said that this is a “one of its kind” initiative for street vendors in Pakistan.

“The marginalized segment of street vendors is an integral part of the local economy, which cannot be wished away in a low-income country like Pakistan,” she said, adding that street vendors have remained an integral part of the urban economy around the world.

She said that Pakistan is no exception with hundreds of thousands of street vendors who reach out in every nook and corner of the country to sell their products.

She added that the program aims at facilitating all of them in a phased manner.

Source: Pro Pakistan