Legalise and Regulate Street Vending for Harmonious Development of Cities

Legalise and Regulate Street Vending  for Harmonious Development of Cities

 The 21^st century has been dubbed the “Century of the City”. Half of the world’s population already lives in urban areas and by the middle of this century most regions of the developing world will be predominantly urban. The State of the World’s Cities 2008/9 adopted the concept of “Harmonious Cities” as a theoretical framework in order to understand today’s urban world, and also as an operational tool to confront the most important challenges facing urban areas and their development processes. One of the most important challenges facing the cities in the developing world such as India is the failure to provide adequate opportunities for gainful employment higher earnings and the consequent emergence of the informal sector with low earnings and insecurity.

 In India, the cities have become hot spots of conflict among various stakeholders of the city economies leading to tension and disharmony. One of the most visible threat to harmony stems from the growing conflict arising out of the proliferation of street vendors or hawkers in urban areas. Street vending or hawking has come under savage attack. Municipal officials, city planners, police, civic activists, and journalists describe hawkers as a “nuisance” and “encroachers of public space”. They are seen to represent the chaos of the cities/towns and streets/lanes, besides the cause of the notorious congestion, filth and disorder. As a result, for most street vendors, trading from the road margins or pavements is full of uncertainties. At the same time, vendors’ organisations, social activists and protagonists of human rights have expressed their anguish over the maltreatment and harassment of street vendors.

The street vendors want them to be legalised and thereby to save them from constant threat of eviction, harassment and rent seeking (bribery) by the civic personnel and the police, besides the ire of the public and the shopkeepers. It is right time to put an end the escalation of the conflict between hawkers and other stake holders of the city. The only way to halt the growing conflict is to legalise street vending or hawking so that the vendors can carry on trading quietly with a sense of confidence. Nevertheless their operations have to be suitably regulated so as to limit the menace of traffic obstruction, inconvenience to commuters/pedestrians, nuisance to shopkeepers, besides to lessen damage to the splendor of the cities. Anyway, it is right time to end this conflict so as to ensure harmony. The announcement of the National    Policy on Street Vendors (2009) and the subsequent introduction of the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill (2012) are considered as steps towards regulation of street vending in public areas and protecting the rights of street vendors. But the implementation of the National Policy by the State governments and local bodies are said to be tardy and unenthusiastic. Anyhow, it is believed that when the Bill becomes Law there will be significant transformation.