🍊 Street vendors near Charminar being moved out again, where do they actually go?

Walked past the Charminar area last weekend and noticed a stretch where fruit and snack vendors have set up for as long as I can remember was suddenly empty, just bare pavement and a couple of municipal workers putting up a temporary barrier. Asked one of the nearby shopkeepers what happened, and he said there had been another drive to clear "unauthorized" vendors from that particular stretch, something that apparently happens every few months depending on which official visit or inspection is coming up around that time. What struck me was talking to one of the vendors himself a little further down the road, someone who has been selling the same roasted corn from the same general area for close to fifteen years according to him. He said he simply moves to a side lane for a week or two until things quiet down, then slowly drifts back to roughly the same spot once attention moves elsewhere, a cycle he described almost casually, like it was just a normal part of doing business in that area now. It made me wonder about the actual logic behind these periodic drives if the same vendors just return within a few weeks anyway. Either the enforcement is genuinely meant to be permanent and keeps failing for some reason, or it is more of a visible gesture done for a specific occasion or complaint rather than any lasting policy, and everyone involved on both sides seems to understand it that way without anyone quite saying it out loud. These vendors are clearly part of what makes that whole area function the way tourists and locals actually experience it, and displacing them repeatedly without any real alternative space being offered feels like it solves nothing for anyone involved, including whoever raised the original complaint that likely triggered the drive in the first place. Does anyone know if there has ever been a serious proposal for a proper designated vending zone near Charminar, something that would actually stick instead of this repeating cycle?

These vendors genuinely shape a lot of how tourists actually experience that specific area in practice, and displacing them repeatedly without any real permanent alternative just makes the whole spot feel less consistent and reliable for visitors too, on top of the obvious direct impact it clearly has on the vendors themselves. A proper designated space would genuinely benefit both the vendors and the overall visitor experience there.

Calling it a gesture rather than an actual lasting policy captures this pretty accurately honestly, it creates a visible moment of action for whoever needed to show something was being done, without genuinely solving anything for the people it directly affects. A genuine long term solution would need actual political will behind it rather than just a periodic visible clearing drive.

A designated vending zone actually worked reasonably well near a different market I know of in the city, vendors got a specific legal space, and the periodic clearing drives mostly stopped happening in that particular area afterward since there was no longer any ambiguity about where they were technically allowed to be set up. Something similar here specifically for the Charminar vendors would probably solve this recurring cycle for good.

Fifteen years of essentially the same cycle repeating, move away for a bit, quietly drift back once attention fades, says a lot about how little this kind of periodic drive actually changes anything long term for either the vendors or whoever originally raised the complaint that triggered it. It genuinely makes me wonder who these periodic drives are actually meant to reassure if the underlying pattern never really changes.