A Chinese Saying

If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
If you want happiness for a month, get married.
If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else.
If you want eternal happiness, know thyself.

The Story Of Hawkers In India

Most of us, in India, consider Hawkers to be irritating and, many times, blame them for the congestion in cities. Maybe they are somewhat responsible for such issues, but after all, they are financially weak and are just trying to make a living. Lets look at some interesting facts and stories about these hawkers.

One very basic and important human right is the right to livelihood whereby every human being should have the right to have a daily means of living. There has been a great deal of development in our country. There is a demand for many jobs, especially in urban India. However, only the educated and financially equipped sections of the society can reap the benefit of such form of organized labour. The poor, uneducated and other people in the rural areas are predominantly engaged in unorganized labour, much of which also consists of hawkers. Hawking is a good way of self-employment. Hawkers are sellers who don’t have a fixed work area. They have to move from place to place to support their livelihood. And even if they find a sufficient place to sell, they are under constant fear of being evicted by the local municipal authority. Yet, instead of making their operating conditions easier, regulating authorities turn to extortionists and spread fear and make their life difficult! Is this the way to go?

In policies on Indian economy relating to liberalization, wealth creation, job generation and reforms; the informal sector often gets overlooked. This is a sector which absorbs millions of our underprivileged, impoverished fellow citizens and helps them earn their meager livelihood, while contributing to our social needs. Yes, these are our greatest and often overlooked service providers. According to Dr. Sharit Bhowmik, Professor of Sociology, Mumbai University, street vending is actually “a natural market formed because of local needs”. The consumers dictate their numbers. Conservative estimates suggest that the street vending community of Mumbai is 250,000 strong, but against this only 14,000 are licensed. It is abundantly clear that municipal authorities use the licensing system only as an instrument of terror and extortion. You can often experience this as a buyer when you see vendors running here and there on the approach of a Municipal truck, as if anticipating a raid by the municipal authorities. Many of India’s 10 million street vendors face a mix of problems such as high rental fees, which in turn cause their illegal status in India. The rent-seeking fees, including bribes, collected in Mumbai annually totaled 20 million dollars. According to Prof. Bhowmik, street vendors pay 10 to 20 percent of their earnings as such fees. Even those who have licensed stalls are not spared. Their stalls and wares are likewise destroyed or confiscated. They are then expected to pay hefty fines to get their push-carts and goods released. The going rate of penalty is Rs. 1,450 plus Rs. 300 as 'removal charges' and Rs. 100 per day as store charges for the number of days their goods and carts stay in municipal yards. Thus a vendor has to spend a minimum of Rs. 1,900 to get them released from the municipality that is if it is released the very next day. Often the vendors can't pay the exorbitant fines and bribes demanded of them for releasing their goods. The municipality ruthlessly harasses the poor and helpless hawkers. New entrants into street vending and hawking are routinely beaten, humiliated and abused by the police. These constant economic and physical assaults not only affect their incomes, but also destroy their self-esteem and confidence. This routine violation of their fundamental and human rights takes place at the hands of the very same people who ought to be ensuring the safety of their lives and property.

Here's the story of a hawker, Jagdish Prasad Gupta; aged 50 years at a location in Mumbai. He has been working in the area for the past 30 years. He originally hails from Allahabad. He came to Mumbai with the hope of having a financially stable life and to educate his children. He resides at Mount Merry just nearby the Bazaar Road. He earns his daily living by selling fruits and vegetables in the area. He has five children. Of the five, one is married. Two of the children are in School and two of them are in College. One of his sons, Rakesh, who goes to college, also does a part time job at a local call center. Rakesh has an eight hour shift and works from 4 pm in the evening to 12 am in the night. On inquiring, Mr. Jagdish also said that Rakesh has a tough time managing his studies and workload of the call center. Rakesh’s salary of Rs. 8000 per month together with his father’s estimated monthly earnings of Rs. 3000 to Rs. 4000 are barely enough to keep the family financially stable in a city like Mumbai where there are high electricity bills, rents, education fees, and problems like water shortages and most importantly, the inefficiency of the local Municipal authority. Mr. Jagdish starts to sell his vegetables around 10 am and continues up to 10 pm in the night heavily relying on the people to purchase vegetables and fruits from him so he can earn a daily living. He works alone, without any help from any of his children. His wife is a homemaker. He has been facing a lot of difficulties trying to run the house. However, he still manages to continue to educate his two school going children and the other two going to college. At least one good thing about Mumbai is that the primary education is very inexpensive.When he arrived in Mumbai, he then realized that life is not so easy here. He began selling fruits and vegetables with a view to earn some decent money and then move to another type of work. But still 30 years after starting business as a vegetable seller, he continues to be in the same business and trying to make ends meet. Few people suggested him to get a valid license before starting to sell the fruits and vegetables. They talked about the notorious ways of the local Municipal authority. As he applied for a license, he found the formalities confusing and irritating. And most importantly, the licensing fees were too high to be affordable by him. Thus, just like the thousands of other helpless hawkers, he started selling without acquiring a license. And this came with a price of its own. The local Municipal authority, the BMC has been harassing him for many years. In one instance, a raid was conducted by the BMC near the area, and Mr. Jagdish’s fruits and vegetables were confiscated by the BMC. After much struggle and effort and a payment of a hefty fine of Rs. 1000, his fruits and vegetables were returned and with a warning to either get a license or leave the area. However, till date, the BMC has not stopped harassing him. They randomly conduct raids in the area and the poor hawkers have no choice but to either pay the expensive fines or flee away from the area. On many occasions, BMC officials have show up without notice and collected money in the form of fines. And whether the money collected are indeed fines or actually bribes, the hawkers have no choice but to comply with the Municipal Authorities. This kind of injustice is intolerable especially since it’s against the poorer sections of the society.

Mr. Sitaram Chavan, a 65 year old owner of a small stall, sells magazines and newspapers. He hails from a place called ‘Kudal’ located near Goa. He came to Mumbai with big dreams and aspirations to have a financially well built life. He has two sons. The elder son for the Times of India. He is a B. Com graduate. However, not being that very good in English and getting unsatisfactory marks in Graduation led him to do a lot of struggle to get a decent paying job. He searched for a lot of jobs in Mumbai, but to no avail. He even tried getting a job in a local call center. However, due to lack of necessary vocal and communication skills, he couldn’t get the job. And now, he works with the Times of India, though he decided to not give further information about the job. His younger brother has struggled even more. Owing to financial problems, he could only study till the 10^th standard. After not faring well in the 10^th standard exams, he was compelled to start working without going for further studies or acquiring a degree. Sanjay has since then opted to help his father run the stall selling newspaper and magazines. Sanjay assembles the stall and arranges the newspapers and magazines accordingly. He opens the stall at around 5 am in early morning. He says that the newspaper is delivered in early morning and he has to open the stall immediately before the newspapers gets confiscated or stolen. There are a good variety of newspapers and magazines which result in good sales. The location of the stall is also helpful in attracting customers.

On asking whether he has a license or not, he first replied saying that no license is needed for selling newspapers. However, since he started selling magazines, he thought of getting a license. Getting a license in a place like Mumbai is no easy task. He had to struggle a lot to get a license but the Municipal authorities proved to be too much a hurdle in the process. And ultimately, he decided to continue the stall without a license. But till date, the Municipal authorities have been harassing him for not having a valid license. Many times, BMC officials show up and demand hefty fines of Rs. 1250 which is a big financial blow to the poor hawkers who hardly earn Rs. 4000 to Rs. 5000 in a month. But the good thing is that Mr. Sitaram has been selling in the area for long enough to be considered a part of it. He has the support of the people of the building behind him. These people recognize him and never complain against him. Once, when the Municipality authorities were questioning him, a man from the building approached them and elaborated that Mr. Sitaram’s stall was not a nuisance, but in fact helpful as many people regularly purchased newspapers from him. And he also insists that since he is 65 years old, he cannot now migrate to any other job. The BMC officials also don’t harass him as much as they harass the other hawkers in the area. And he also insists that he would still get a valid license provided the Municipal authorities cooperate.

Indian authorities can learn from their Malaysian counterparts in Kuala Lumpur about how to include street vending in the process of urban planning. For example, Kuala Lumpur’s proposal of making food courts compulsory in high-rise buildings can be a good way for our authorities to emulate in leading the vendors towards a legal status and offering them a permanent space to sell (The future of urban architecture in India is vertical and hence high-rise). A group in IIT Delhi has studied the space requirement for vendors and found that all the existing vendors can be easily accommodated in the available space, provided the city authorities are willing to plan space allocation in an efficient and rational manner. If workable, this approach could be used to transform the street vending scene in other urban centers including Mumbai as well.

At a Lok Sunwayii (people’s hearing) for the street vendors in Delhi, the following demands were made on behalf of the street vendors:-
• At a time when big industries are being de-licensed, and factories worth crores can be set up without complex licensing requirements, street vending should also be delicensed.
• Instead of treating them as a "public nuisance", services of vendors should be given due recognition. The Supreme Court order requiring every city to clearly demarcate Hawking and No-Hawking zones should be expeditiously implemented, taking the actual requirements of every city's population into account, rather than based on arbitrary, bureaucratic whims. A Pay and Hawk scheme would also increase the revenue collected by municipalities, provided that payments are allowed to reach government treasuries.
• As long as the government fails to evolve and implement a viable policy for street vendors by allocating proper Hawking Zones, raids by the municipality and clearance operations should be altogether suspended.
• Keeping in view the importance of the 'natural markets' developed by street vendors, the city administration should be pressured to provide them water and sanitation facilities so that they can maintain cleanliness and hygiene in their markets.
• Since the police danda is used mostly on honest citizens while the anti-social elements actually get protection from the police, the policemen should be disarmed of their dandas. In no functioning democracy is the police allowed to wield lathis (batons) on innocent citizens, the way it is in India. Today citizens of India, especially the poor, need to be protected from the police. One small step in that direction would be danda-free policing.
• In addition, the police should be given better training and better pay packets, along with establishing effective accountability in their functioning, if they are to act as an instrument of law and order, rather than promote crime. They, too, need help in restoring their self respect, so that they do not behave like thugs and looters. We urge residents' associations to join the vendors to form Nagrik Sahyog Samitis to curb the abuse of power by police and bring municipal officials to account.

Over a period of time, some judges at the High Court and the Supreme Court have realised the socioeconomic problems of street vendors and hawkers, and consequently given some relief in cases relating to them.

The courts have unanimously held that Art 19(l)(g) of the Constitution guarantees a fundamental right to hawk or vend, subject to reasonable restrictions imposed by the State (Art 19(6)). Equally the Courts have been unanimous in holding that public streets are meant for pedestrians, and hawking or street vending is a public nuisance and an encroachment so such must be removed.

Earlier the courts had in some cases held that tight to life included right to livelihood, but the Supreme Court later on held that Art. 19 (1)(g) and Art. 21 are quite independent of each other at least in the street vendor’s cases.

But the courts have also, particularly in class actions held that alternative accommodation or pitches must be provided to the hawkers if they have been there for a sufficiently long period so as to establish their right to hawking.

Thus in K Sundarshan vs. Commissioner Corporation of Madras (AIR 1984 Mad 292), the High Court said that, "hawkers do not have a fundamental right to trade on public streets creating a nuisance by obstruction and encroachment on public streets. Municipal authorities are directed to provide alternative accommodation to hawkers, but public nuisance shall no longer be tolerated on the pretext that hawkers belong to the weaker class and fight for bare subsistence".

A similar view was taken regarding public nuisance and encroachments and forcible eviction to free the streets in Francis Coralie Mullin (AIR 1981 SC 746) and Olga Tellis Vs. Bombay Municipal Corporation (AIR1986 BC 180). In these cases decided by the Supreme Court Sections 230 and 231 referred to earlier, were being challenged. However these cases concerned pavement or street dwellers and not hawkers or vendors, though the issue of encroachment, public nuisance and procedure for removal were identical.

In subsequent cases like Sodhan Singh Vs. Delhi Municipal Corporation (AIR 1992 SC 1153) Gulamali Gulamnabi Shaikh vs. Municipal Commissioner (1986 GLH 616) the courts have directed the municipal authorities to frame schemes for vendors/hawkers, issue pitch licences to them and clearly earmark sites and places where they can carry on their business.

In Dalvadi Gatorbhai Vs. State (1995 (2) GLR 974), the Gujarat High Court very innovatively side-stepped the decisions of the Supreme Court in Olga Tellis, Francis Coralie and Sodhan Singh on the point of requirement of notice and opportunity of hearing to the hawkers before their forcible removal.

In Gatorbhai's case the question was the validity of Sec. 185 of the Gujarat Municipalities Act 1961, which permitted the Chief Officer of the Municipality to remove encroachments and obstructions in public places, without giving notice or hearing die vendors/hawkers. The Gujarat High Court held that notice was mandatory. It distinguished the earlier Supreme Court decisions on the ground that in the present case no urgency for removal was made out, particularly when the vendors had been sitting there for a number of years. Further even though Sec. 185 did not provide for giving of notice,-such notice was required to be given to the affected persons on the grounds of natural justice.


FINAL CONCLUSION: The informal sector, and within this sector the role of street vendors, is an economically significant one. For too long they have been denied their rightful place in the sun. Street vending must get the dignity it deserves for the role it has in keeping the cycle of our local economy moving. It is an engine and the only one of wealth creation that is available for India’s poor yet dexterous millions. And it is high time that our planners do something concrete so that these vital contributors of Indian economy can go about their work without the fear or insecurity of suffering extortion and abuse.

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