The tale of street vendors

With the increasing number of population in Dhaka, requirement of more footpaths has become crucial. They are also needed for the small street entrepreneurs, i.e. vendors.

During peak hours, footpaths in Dhaka get occupied by a section of illegal occupants, who are allowed to engage in business, and legalised, by neighbourhood extortionists and a section of law enforcers. The city of Dhaka has a vast number of street vendors, most of them being informal traders. Maybe, they cater to the city dwellers' needs to some extent, but most of the time they create problems in the urban area by obstructing smooth pedestrian movement with their open-air shops on the footpaths. Those also lead to gathering of crowds around the shops.  The vendors sometimes legalise their illegal occupation of the footpaths by 'managing' law enforcers, the administration people and, most importantly, the political parties and their youth wings.

According to the media, vendors operate their businesses in Farmgate, Gulistan and New Market areas by paying Taka 0.5 million per day as illegal toll to local political leaders and workers. They also bribe the local authorities for permission to conduct business. Sometimes, special drives are conducted to evict the illegal vendors, but a few days after that we see their return and the same episode is repeated.

Occupation of footpaths by vendors causes road accidents as pedestrians are forced to use vehicle-filled roads. It is observed that sometimes the eviction process remains withheld. It happens because of the pressure from influential quarters. The flip side of the eviction drive is that it makes large numbers of urban dwellers jobless, which creates a new problem. Eviction of footpath vendors without making alternative arrangements for them will lead to unwarranted social tension.

As an evicted street vendor puts it, "I have no savings, since my income is very low. How will I provide food for my family of four now?" He has requested the government to introduce an alternative source of income for the permanently evicted vendors. Some vendors are found to be creative and they apply ingenious strategies to catch attention of the buyers. Despite their sales tricks, they sell quality products at an affordable cost. It has been found that products having almost the same quality as that found in those at formal shops can be bought at prices 25 per cent-50 per cent less on the footpaths.

A research shows that Dhaka has a large number of poor urban dwellers, who have no skills to get jobs in formal sectors. They frequently turn into street vendors in urban areas. Most of them are rural-to-urban migrants. They rush to big cities like Dhaka due to the lack of work facilities and public services in rural area. Sometimes, they escape from home or are forced to come to the city after losing everything in river erosion. Other than rickshaw pulling or petty menial works, to be a street vendor is the best job opportunity for them. They consider it more prestigious also.

According to Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) report, in the whole corporation area 60 per cent houses are of low income, 37 per cent middle income, and the rest 3 per cent comprises high-income houses. The report says more than 60 per cent of the urban dwellers depend on the occupation of urban street vendors.

The higher authorities have no proper rehabilitation policy for the street vendors, although street vending is the most important job opportunity for more than 0.4 million urban dwellers in Dhaka city. According to a survey, street vendors operate through four different types of vending systems in urban areas: permanent, semi-permanent, semi-mobile, and mobile.

Another survey made on street food vendors in Dhaka shows that their average age stands at about 34 years. Evidence also reveals a poor educational background of the respondents. Formal education is at 3.75 years reflecting the fact that most of them could not even complete their primary education. The average length of activity of the vendors is close to 7 years, and on average they work around 12 hours per day. The mean value for the number of days worked in a month shows that they take very few days off. The average monthly income of a food vendor appears to be Taka 5647.

Perhaps we cannot think of a day without vendors. They are making our day-to-day life easier by bringing goods to our doorsteps at a reasonable price. But the street vendors are creating problems, like footpath obstructions with crowds of buyers etc. Still a large number of urban dwellers depend on the street vendors.

The government has to formulate a functional system for street vendors so that they could be relocated to a designated place to operate their business with responsibility and the authorities could also collect legal taxes from them. Thus a sizable economic return could be derived from the sector, and the vendors could turn out to be resourceful and be able to play a major role in society.

The writer is with Daffodil International University.

ansary@daffodilvarsity.edu.bd