Bhubaneswar: Eight months after severe cyclonic storm Fani hit the Capital city, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC), Friday, announced release of financial assistance to the storm-affected street vendors.
As per the validation, altogether 11,348 beneficiaries will be eligible for receiving the assistance. Each beneficiary will get Rs 10,000 through direct benefit transfer (DBT) mode, as per the announcement made by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik earlier.
However, many vendors have expressed their discontentment over absence of their names in the list of beneficiaries while others are irked by the delay in release of funds. The BMC in 2015-16 had conducted a survey which pegged the number of street vendors at 21,483. This included 2,440 mobile, 1,276 peripatetic and 17, 767 stationary vendors.
“I have been selling fruits here for the past seven years. Fani has completely destroyed my shop that was made of bamboos and sticks. I was hopeful that I will be able to re-establish the shop with some assistance from the government but I’m shocked to hear that my name is missing in the list. Who should I go to now?” complained Manoranjan Behera a peripatetic vendor here.
The validation drive, which started across several wards in presence of ward officers, community organisers and also the office-bearers of the vending zones in respective wards, was initiated in June last year. However, the entire process took more time than expected.
“Why now? They could have waited till the next cyclone to give us the funds,” quipped Bhawani Shankar, another street vendor here.
Responding to the ordeals of the street vendors, an official at the BMC said, “We had to ensure that all beneficiaries were authentic and this took some time. The validation process became complicated as many vendors had migrated to other places owing to loss of their livelihood and came back after a while. The present list is the most verified and authentic one.”