the bmcs town vending committee has decided to nearly double the number of stalls at fashion street from the current 393 to 700 by decreasing the size of each stall to a uniform 1 mt x 1 mtwhile the expansion will be welcomed by fashion hunters as more vendors will mean greater variety and competitive pricing the stall owners are already preparing to launch a legal challenge against the decisioncurrently the stalls here are not uniformly sized they range from 2 mt 1 mt to up to 4 mt 1 mt which means each stall as per the bmc formula can take one to three more vendorsfashion street has witnessed many changes over the years while in the mid80s it had just a few stalls it now stretches from the vsnl building in the south to the lane leading to bombay hospital on the north for many years stalls selling everything from clothes to shoes to jewellery occupied both sides of the footpath before the pitches on the roadside of the pavement were removedconfirming the bmcs decision senior inspector licenses award sunil dalvi said the town vending committees decision follows from the designation of several streets and areas in the city as nohawking zones street vendors from these areas need to be moved elsewhere fashion street is one of these sites he said currently the stalls at fashion street are not uniformly sized rajesh yadav secretary fashion market welfare licence owners association said the bmcs decision is like squeezing the market from both ends on the one hand the corporation wants to reduce the size of our pitches this means less space for us to display our wares and poor customer experience and on the other it wants to add more vendors to the market which will lead to more competition and reduced margins he saidhe also questioned how could the bmc suddenly decide to reduce the size of their stalls after accepting rents based on different dimensions for years while some vendors pay a monthly rent others pay it quarterly the quarterly rent ranges between rs 1700 and rs 1800 and it is rs 400 to rs 600 per monththis is not the first time the bmc is moving some hawkers from other parts of the city to fashion street the bombay high court had passed an order in 1988 to accommodate licensed stall owners from kalaghoda fountain and gpo at fashion streetthe a ward has 16 hawking zones proposed including sabu siddique marg murzban lane karimbai marg s s tolani marg ramjibhai kamani marg narvottam morji marg j n marg dadabhai naoroji marg sir pherozshah mehta marg homji street mumbai samachar marg m g road west m g road east and jamnalal bajaj marg