But under the weight of 30-odd public interest petitions currently being heard in the Bombay High Court, the civic authorities have no choice but to answer for its sins of omission till date.

When the Mayor-in-Council was installed at the helm last year, the BMC decided to create hawking zones, outside which such vending would be prohibited. However, as soon as the administration began to chalk out the zones, residents, outraged at the proposed infiltration into their areas, draggedthe BMC to court. The civic authorities did not realise it then but this was also not a legally viable solution.

With its back to the wall now, the BMC told the court this week that it would alternatively create non-hawking zones, with street vendors free to do business only outside these designated areas. But whether it realises it or not, the BMC still has two pieces of legislation still staring it in the face. The only viable - though unpalatable - alternative therefore would be to amend the BMC Act before creating either hawking or non-hawking zones.

What then are the hurdles in this legal obstacle-course race? For one, the BMC cannot designate areas as hawking zones as neither the BMC Act, nor the Metropolitan Regional Town Planning (MRTP) Act nor the Development Control Regulations (1991) account for such areas. With almost every square inch of the city reserved for a specific purpose other than hawking, plots hitherto reserved for playgrounds, gardens, schools, etc, will have to first bedereserved and then re-reserved as hawking zones. But only after amendments to the respective legislations.

This is precisely why the BMC counsel told the Bombay High Court this week that the corporation has finally decided to create only non-hawking zones. But this option too is legally untenable since by implication the BMC would be permitting vendors to ply their trade in any area not designated as as hawking-zone. However, with almost every square inch in Mumbai reserved for purposes other than hawking, the BMC comes full circle.

Even temporary solutions do not exist. If the civic authorities were to declare certain areas as `permissible hawking areas' that would not be legally permissible as the BMC Act says pavements and public roads are meant exclusively for public use and cannot be used by persons to earn a livelihood.

Also, when the BMC decided to demarcate hawking zones, it had agreed to allot pitches measuring 1m x 1m to every vendor. But this too is against the law as Section 312 of the BMCAct prohibits the erection of any structure or fixture on any public street which constitutes an obstruction or encroachment.

To work around this bend, the non-hawking zone proposal includes a provision whereby vendors will be allowed to do business only by day and will have to vacate the zones at night. That is, by restricting hawking from 7 am to 9 pm, the BMC argues that the vendors will have to clear the pavements and other areas after nightfall. However, for most hawkers, their stalls double as shelters by night. And experience has shown that once they set up shop there is no wishing them away, even for a few hours.

Then, there is a more linear though equally baffling impediment - the vendors' sheer numbers. For one, there is no official estimate of how many hawkers use Mumbai's network of roads as a giant business establishment. The BMC had appointed the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action, a non-voluntary organisation, to enumerate the hawkers in 1997 butrefused to accept the figures crunched out. Still, one thing's for sure, their numbers - unions peg them at 5 lakh - are multiplying with every passing day.

But with space in Mumbai at a premium, further complications are bound to arise. The only solution is to halt the onward march of migrants into this already congested city, but that is impossible. Now, with the law providing the only answer to the hawking conundrum, it will be a while before the civic administration can even begin its biggest ever logistical exercise.

(Prasanna Khapre-Upadhyay is a reporter with The Indian Express. She covers the civic beat)