National Hawker Federation History

The National Hawker Federation is an association of Street Vendors across 28 States in the country, with 1650+ Unions, including 11 Central Trade Unions& over 20 International Trade unions abroad. We have been working on the rights on street vendors for the past 20 years throughout the country.

The seed of the NHF was sown in January 2000 when we convened a national meeting to bolster the demand for a national policy on urban street vending. The meeting took place at the sprawling campus of the Loreto School, Calcutta between 7 and 9 January, 2000. 

In a long historic struggle carried out across the country on the blood of Hawkers, Peddlers, Push Carters & Street Vendors in which over 50 Street Vendors had to sacrifice their lives. Through this struggle the NHF could compel governments irrespective of colours to adapt National Policy in 2004, revised National Policy 2009, Model Act for Street Vendors 2010 and after acontempt case in Hon’ble Supreme Court, this resulted in a Historical Judgment of Hon’ble Supreme Court on 9th September 2013. Finally the
Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014.
It wasattended by representatives from all walks of life including the hawkers associations from different states, human rights activists, intellectuals and academicians, media, elected representatives of the Parliament, Legislative Assembly of West Bengal, the Mayor of Kolkata, the Government and the Police Representatives. This grand event was followed by a meeting held in 2001 at the Banga Bhawan (New Delhi) organised by the government. In that meeting it was decided that a National Policy on Urban Street Vending would be formulated by involving concerned stake-holders. To add momentum to the process a National Task Force was instituted with five representatives from the NHF. In 2002, we were able to organise a South and South East Asia Conference in Kolkata on the issue of street vending. This conference was a landmark in the annals of our movement. We took three major strategic decisions at the conference. First, we instituted an International Federation of Hawkers and Urban Poor with a global outreach. Second, We declared the 26th May as the International Hawkers’ Day. Third, we came up with the “Calcutta Declaration” formally pledging our continuing struggle against eviction, extortion, and neoliberal policies.