An association of street vendors today threatened to lay siege to the MCD headquarters here on June one to protest their alleged harassment and arbitrary eviction by the civic authority before the Commonwealth Games.

The National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI), which claims to have membership of over three lakh in 20 states of the country, also accused the municipal corporation of dilly-dallying in formulating and implementing a proper policy for urban street hawkers.

"We will gherao the Town Hall on June 1 to press for our demands, including formulation of a proper policy for vendors and stopping their harassment by MCD," NASVI Programme Coordinator Arbind Singh said.

He alleged that with the Commonwealth Games approaching, MCD has been "arbitrarily" evicting hawkers and vendors from various city markets, taking away their push carts and imposing heavy fines.

"We want a proper policy under which there will be specific vending and no-vending zones in the city. Instead of evicting them, vendors should be involved in making the Games a success," Singh said.

He claimed the vendors associations have discussed the issue with top officials of MCD several times but have got only empty promises. Singh also said since 2007, 1.31 lakh applications have been submitted to the MCD but not a single vending licence has been granted.

"The MCD wants to identify the genuine vendors and we had offered our help in this regard. Our representatives are in the committee to look into the vendor policy. We had said that we can give them the list of our members after which MCD officials can verify and identify the genuine vendors. But the MCD committee only holds discussions and takes no decision," Singh said.