Kashmir's First Smart Vending Zone Meant To Decongest Srinagar Roads Vanishes Without Use
The shutting down of the smart vending zone built five years ago has left the beneficiary vendors fuming.
Published : March 11, 2026 at 5:23 PM IST
Srinagar: A Smart Vendor Hawker Zone near the Jammu and Kashmir’s commercial centre, Lal Chowk, to accommodate street vendors has disappeared overnight, leaving street vendors fuming and citizens in confusion.
This first Smart Vending Zone was constructed under the Srinagar Smart City Project at a cost of Rs 4 crore and was completed in 2021 to accommodate 250 street vendors who have occupied the roadsides and footpaths at Hari Singh High Street, Residency Road and Lal Chowk.
Its foundation was laid by the Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Governor Manoj Sinha at Jehangir Chowk to provide space to 250 vendors. More than 170 specially designed kiosks were constructed at the zone for all weather business. The area was refurbished with concrete and fenced with iron-grills.
At the time of the foundation stone, the SMC had said the vending zone will have a solar lighting system, multiple categories of kiosks, restaurant, vending machines, water ATMs and adequate parking space.
The SMC had said that the vending zone will help in decongesting the roads and enable smooth traffic movement on the roads and also declare Hari Singh High Street, Residency Road, Lal Chowk no vending zones for free movement of the pedestrians.
Chief Revenue Officer of the SMC, Suhail Ahmad Chintsaz, told ETV Bharat the relocation of the vendors did not materialize in these years which compelled the SMC to remove the kiosks from the vending zone. He said the kiosks will be utilized at some other places in the city. “The corporation is thinking over how the vending zone will be used,” he said.
For the last three years, vendors like Zahid Ali and Javaid Ahmad were awaiting to move to the Smart vending zone but the overnight disappearance of the kiosk has left them fuming. “We were hoping to shift our carts to the vending zone but the shifting did not materialise until now. Last month, we saw the kiosks being removed in trucks,” Javaid Ahmad, the president of street vendors in Srinagar’s Harisingh High Street, told ETV Bharat.
Javaid and the dozens of other vendors have no idea why the kiosks were removed from the vending zone that was constructed for them so that they could get a permanent working zone.
“More than 270 vendors from Jahangir Chowk to Amira Kadal earn their livelihood from street vending. SMC officials remove us every day for encroaching upon footpaths and roads. We hoped our shifting to this permanent vending zone will end our daily harassment. Instead of rehabilitating us, the government shifted the kiosks without informing us,” Ahmad said.
A study on street vending in Srinagar published in Springer Nature says street vending has become one of the major micro-enterprises in Srinagar, providing livelihood to those people who lack other job options in the formal sector, particularly young people, both migrants and city residents.
The study says there are more than 6,000 street vendors in the city, which need to be relocated to a smart vending zone as the bustling public spaces have been transformed into congested marketplaces, severely restricting free movement of people and vehicles.
Parvaiz Qadri, former deputy mayor of the SMC questioned removal of the kiosk saying that it clearly indicates that SMC has no plan to relocate street vendors. “First the officials spent money for building this vending zone from Smart City Project funds. Now they have removed the kiosks and abandoned the vending zone. Who will be held accountable now for wasting public funds. How will the government relocate vendors in the city when it is planning to convert its first Smart Vending Zone into a parking place or any other utility,” Qadri told ETV Bharat.
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