~Wondering about JTCDM

Something that might have gone unnoticed by most of us in the recent past, the Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management (JTCDM) announced a cut in the course fees for the fourth semester. From a total payable amount of Rs 58,967, the fee for the fourth semester has been reduced to Rs 29,150. This reduction in the fees is a direct factor of the reduction of the ‘development fund’ charged by the JTCDM. The development fund charged earlier was Rs 32000, which has now been brought down to Rs 2500- at par with most other courses.

The rationale for charging such an exorbitant sum was provided by the Centre as the course being only UGC recognised and not funded. Nevertheless, this rationale still did not justify a whopping sum of close to Rs. 60000 being charged as course fees per semester. It is a known fact that the Disaster Management course is one of the most expensive courses in TISS.

In an environment where transparency and accountability is ostensibly encouraged, on being questioned about where the money was being spent, JTCDM maintained silence. It is only after persistent questioning during student-faculty interactions that the centre ‘quietly’ came up with a ‘surprise package’ for the students this semester. The news was made public only by mid-November during the entire fee payment mayhem! What is perplexing? The timing! Only after the last day of for fee submission had gone past, did the Centre wake up to send ‘formal letters’ to the parents of the students by speed post.

While the lowering of the fees has come as a major relief to all the students, it also leaves one wondering about a lot of things. What made possible this sudden cut in charges from the students? Has the UGC agreed to fund the course? Do the fourth semester students deserve any reimbursements if this was a case of incorrect budget estimation? Will this also mean that the Centre has relaxed the imperative of bettering this newly started course? Why has no authoritative explanation been given to the students for this major change? Don’t the students have a right to know, why they have to pay the amount they pay and how is it spent?

- Vidushi Kaushik

~Support the Street-Hawkers of Mumbai

The neo-liberal sanitization drive in Mumbai has now set its eyes upon the hapless street hawkers of the city, a profession that sustains the livelihoods of many women and small home-based industries. Ostensibly in a move to control the “menace” of the street hawkers to achieve “world-class” management of public places and roads in the city, the State Government and the Bombay Municipal Corporation plan to introduce Acts with the following provisions:
• Anyone who wants to do vending on the streets will have to register themselves. The complications and cost of the registration process can make it unfeasible for most of the hawkers to get themselves registered.

• The civic body would allow them to conduct business in a marked zone reserved for hawkers. The zone will be approved by the State government. Anyone who violates this rule will have to face six-month jail term, and/or a penalty of Rs 5,000. The demarcation without consultation with the hawkers and has severely adverse impact on their business.
• Any hawker who violates rules and regulations will be liable to pay a penalty of Rs 500 for each day of the violation. How will a vendor who earns about of Rs.70 a day, pay Rs.500?
· Vendors will not be allowed sell any goods other than what has been registered with a central body in the BMC. The vendors do not sell the same goods always. They have to be flexible to the slightest changes in the market. This flexibility will be killed by the provisions of these acts.

We contend that these bills are practically an eviction order for more than 2.5 lakh “illegal” street hawkers. It will only add to the scores of troubles that street hawkers face. Already not less than Rs.50 crores are extracted as bribes every month. The new bills have come only to add force to the extortionist racket of the civic officials and the police.

The proposed acts are in serious violation of the National Policy of Urban Street Vendors of January, 2009. Where is the Town Vending Committee that is supposed to oversee the registration process for vendors? Where are the vending zones and vendors’ markets that the civic body has to demarcate? Where are the measures towards greater empowerment and formalization of the unions and welfare associations of the hawkers that the State government is supposed to take?

With none of these prerequisites in place, to only focus on registration of hawkers shows the blatant anti-poor attitude of the Government. The Bill in its draconian diktats reduces the entire National Policy to mere lip service and also violates the Supreme Court judgment that street hawkers have a right to dignity of livelihood.

Many unions and organizations are already struggling hard to fight these moves of the BMC, which in effect will flush out the largely migrant hawker population and stuff the pockets of the local police!
We appeal for solidarity with the struggle of the hawkers for preserving their livelihoods and greater democratic rights for workers in the informal sector.

- Vaibhav Raaj, Swathi Shivanand