Hawkers have to pay Tk 850 crore every year as toll to different agencies across the country, alleged Jatiya Hawkers’ Federation (JHF) at its third national conference here on Saturday.
Addressing the conference at the Photo Journalists’ Association auditorium, union leaders said some 500,000 hawkers earn their livelihoods through small trading on footpaths in the city and each hawker or vendor has to pay Tk 50 every day on average as toll to run his business.
Chaired by JHF president Arif Chowdhury, the conference was addressed, among others, by union leaders Abul Hossain, MA Quasem, Haroon-or Rashid, Kamal Siddiqui, Himangshu Mitra and Zakair Hossain.
They said the hawkers and vendors have long been pressing for formulating a national policy for their rehabilitation, but the successive governments did not pay heed to it.
The hawkers have long been falling victims to harassment and extortion in running their business, which causes revenue losses to the national exchequer, the union leaders added.
The conference elected a 31-member executive committee with Arif Chowdhury and Rafiqul Islam as president and general secretary respectively for a two-year term.
Source: UNBConnect
