Mumbai civic body is moving street hawkers to Colaba market to free footpaths

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is setting up uniform stalls for hawkers at Colaba Causeway, the heritage shopping stretch near the Gateway of India, to free up its footpaths for pedestrians. The one-kilometre stretch is home to one of the city’s best-known street markets.

Most of its vendors are unlicensed, and over the years they have taken over the footpath, forcing pedestrians onto the road and adding to traffic snarls. In November 2025, the BMC removed 67 unauthorised stalls from the stretch. Many other hawkers moved out on their own.

The civic body will now allot dedicated stalls to 91 licensed hawkers on the Causeway. It has awarded a Rs 2.24-crore contract for the project, a civic official said. “The hawker stalls will be one square metre in area and will display the names of shops alongside the QR code issued by the BMC, while presenting a standardised and appealing appearance, when viewed from the road,” the official said.

The QR-coded identity cards, which the BMC began issuing this year, are meant to distinguish licensed hawkers from illegal ones. A 2014 survey identified 99,345 hawkers across Mumbai as eligible. The survey also fed into the formation of a town vending committee, which is to allot dedicated pitches and vending zones to hawkers while clearing encroached public spaces.