Urban informal sector contributes significantly to the growth of the economy. This becomes more pertinent in view of the fact that there has been a decrease in employment in the formal sector. 

The role of the informal sector is increasing day by day as more and more workers are getting retrenched in the formal sector. Under this grim backdrop, a National Workshop was held in the capital recently on Street Vendors and Hawkers, who are creating their own employment without putting any burden on the government. Taking into consideration the contribution made by hawkers and street vendors, the government is actively considering a proposal to draw up policies and schemes to ameliorate their condition. 

At the workshop, which called for setting up of a Task Force to finalise the Guidelines for Street Vending, the then Minister for Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, Mr Jagmohan, emphasised the need for continuous dialogue among street vendors, urban local bodies, police and Resident's Welfare Association. 

As such, the Task Force will include representatives of vendors associations and urban local bodies. The workshop, jointly organised by the Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation and Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA), urged all urban local bodies to recognise the important contribution of street vendors and to draw up policies and schemes which will incorporate them into the urban economy and life. 

Recognising that street vendors have always been part of the Indian urban culture of public spaces and services, the Workshop noted that the urban informal sector contributed significantly to the growth of the economy. It further observed that the street vendors remained poor and illiterate and were treated as illegal persons and also as criminals and harassed by police and municipal authorities, and excluded from all town-planning schemes.

Therefore, with a view to bringing these one crore street vendors into the mainstream of the urban economy, the Workshop recommended that the policy of the urban local body should be to regulate street vending and to provide them specific places and specific time for vending. Their location and work should be regulated by a suitable mechanism recognising their role in urban life.

While recommending legal recognition of street vendors by giving them identity cards, State governments and urban local bodies should plan guidelines to reserve certain percentage of land for street vendors in all development plans and to update existing plans.

Guidelines should decide number of vendors required as a percentage of population .and plan the number of vendors to be accommodated accordingly. Besides, priority should be given to women vendors in issuing permission for hawking and vending.

Setting up of self-governance mechanisms such as committees and boards was also suggested by the Workshop so that they could work closely with the municipality to harmonies the interests of all parties the vendors, the shopkeepers, the residents, the consumers and the traffic. 

Keeping in mind the poor economic condition of the street vendors, there is the need to promote credit schemes and micro-finance for the vendors.

Referring to this aspect, Mr Jagmohan indicated that a provision may be, made in the 10th Five Year Plan to provide street vendors with meaningful access to institutional credit and financial services to that they are not left at the mercy of private money-lenders and loan sharks. He said that grant of financial help may also be considered for groups of vendors from Swarn Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana if they form cooperatives. Yet, regulation of vendors is not an easy task due to heavy influx of low skilled migrants seeking employment in the cities and due to growing urban indiscipline.

While the original Master Plan of Delhi had earmarked five per cent area for hawkers and vendors, this never worked in reality because hawkers allotted the area preferred to sell it to others and move elsewhere.

According to a report based on a recent study of hawkers and street vendors conducted in seven cities of India by the National Alliance of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) these people generally possessed low skills and lacked the level of education required for the better paid jobs in the organised sector. For these people work in the informal sector are the only means for their survival. 

The report said that for the urban poor, hawking is one of the means of earning a livelihood as it requires minor financial input and the skills involved are low. 

Studies conducted in the metropolises of Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Collate reveal that these people, or their spouses, were once engaged in better paid jobs in the formal sector. Most of them were employed in the textile mills in Mumbai and Ahmedabad and in engineering firms in Collate. Formal sector workers in these three metropolises have had to face large-scale unemployment due to the closure of these industries. Hence, many of them, or their wives have become street vendors in order to eke out a living. 

The study conducted by Prof. Sharit Bhowmick, Head of the Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai, reveals that Mumbai has the largest number  of hawkers numbering around 200,000. Kolkata has more than 100,000 hawkers. Ahmedabad and Patna have around 80,000 each and Indore, Bangalore and Bhubaneswar have around 30,000 hawkers. 

An important aspect that should not be overlooked is the fact that the total employment provided through hawking becomes larger if we consider the scenario that they sustain certain industries by providing markets for their products. A lot of goods sold by hawkers, such as clothes and hosiery, leather and moulded plastic goods and household goods, are manufactured in small scale or home-based Industries. These industries employ large number of workers and the manufacturers could have hardly marketed their products on their own. In this way they provide a valuable service by helping sustain employment in these industries.

(By Arrangement with Kaleidoscope)