The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : It is hawking all the way on city streets

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Wednesday, Sep 03, 2008
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Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

It is hawking all the way on city streets

Special Correspondent

Street vendors cashing in on the festival shopping spree

— Photo: C. Ratheesh Kumar

Ready for the splurge: The variety and colour on offer at these shops in East Fort seem to have brought the spirit of the festive season of Onam early to Thiruvananthapuram.

Thiruvananthapuram: With the city in the grip of the Onam festival, the footpaths in the commercial areas have turned into a huge hawking zone.

Vendors from neighbouring States have descended in hordes on the East Fort area, appropriating every available portion on the prime stretches of the thoroughfare to make the most of the festival shopping spree. The whole area wears the look of a bustling roadside market, with vendors putting up temporary tarpaulin shades to escape the blazing heat.

Most of the stalls sell readymade dresses at incredibly cheap rates. “We are not competing with reputed shops or branded goods. Our cheap prices appeal to customers for whom quality or brand value is not an issue,” says a vendor. The range of materials on offer includes jeans, saris, dhotis, shirts and kids wear. Bargaining is encouraged.

A major chunk of the clientele for roadside stalls is from the outlying wards and suburban panchayats. Vendors say they have adopted an early bird approach to regain the advantage from the festival discount fairs and melas conducted by organised traders.

The City Corporation and the police have adopted an accommodative approach to the traders who usually pack up and leave by the end of the season.

The influx of street vendors has deprived pedestrians of the little available walking space, forcing them on to the roads where they have to evade vehicular traffic.

City Development Plan

The City Development Plan (CDP) prepared by the City Corporation proposes rehabilitation of hawkers and legitimisation of street vending as an affordable service for the urban population. The proposal seeks to relocate street vendors to special zones equipped with basic infrastructure facilities.

Proposed as a basic service for the urban poor, the project involves a multi-pronged approach for demarcation of vending zones, providing semi-permanent infrastructure and ensuring legal status to street vendors through a regulatory process. Creating an organisational structure and collection of revenue are the other components of the project.

According to the City Development Plan, urban vending is not only a source of employment; it also provides ‘affordable’ services to a majority of the city population. The role played by the hawkers in the economy as also in society needs to be given due credit but they are considered as unlawful entities and are subjected to continuous harassment by the police and civic authorities, it says.

Supreme Court ruling

The CDP cites a Supreme Court ruling: “if properly regulated, the small traders on the side walks can considerably add to the comfort and convenience of the general public, by making available ordinary articles of everyday use for a comparatively lesser price.”

The National Policy on Urban Informal Sector also supports the view that street vendors provide valuable services to the urban population while trying to earn a livelihood and that it is the duty of the State to protect the right of this segment of population to earn their livelihood. The CDP states that the rehabilitation project was drawn up to protect the basic rights of the street vendors and provide better amenities to the urbanites.

Apart from the hawkers who descend on the city during the festival season, it is estimated that the city has 3,700 street vendors operating from major commercial zones such as East Fort, Chala, Manacaud, Thampanoor, Statue, Palayam, Karamana, Kesavadasapuram, Vazhuthacaud, Medical College, Ulloor and Sasthamangalam.

Hawking zones

Under the proposal, the Corporation would identify land to create hawking zones and make street vendors a special component of the urban development plans by treating them as an integral and legitimate part of the urban distribution system.

A participatory mechanism would be set up with representation by vendors’ organisations, voluntary agencies, civic authorities, the police and residents associations for orderly conduct of urban vending activities in hygienic environs.

The project would try to ensure a better future for child vendors by making arrangements for their rehabilitation and schooling.

It would also seek to create a hassle-free environment for the public to purchase goods from hawkers.

The CDP also proposes amendments to the Kerala Municipalities Act to ensure legal status to the street vendors.

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