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Implementing the Street Vendors

Act
CELEBRATED AS A PROGRESSIVE LEGISLATION, THE ACT NOW FACES
NUMEROUS CHALLENGES IN ITS IMPLEMENTATION
May 01, 2024 02:33 am | Updated 02:33 am IST
ARAVIND UNNI, SHALINI SINHA
A street vendor prepares lemon juice for customers on a hot afternoon in Bhubaneswar. | Photo Credit:
The Hindu
A
decade has passed since the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and
Regulation of Street Vending) Act came into effect on May 1, 2014,
marking a significant milestone after nearly four decades of legal
jurisprudence and the tireless efforts of street vendor movements across India.
Celebrated as a progressive legislation, the Act now faces numerous challenges in its
implementation. Looking back, the mere enactment of a law did not ensure the
protection and security of street vendors in Indian cities; there was much to be
desired in its execution.
Provisions of the law
Street vendors, estimated to constitute 2.5% of any city’s population, play
multifaceted roles in city life. Local vegetable sellers and food vendors are essential
providers of daily services. Vending offers many migrants and the urban poor a
source of modest yet consistent income. The vendors also make city life affordable
for others by providing vital links in the food, nutrition, and goods distribution chain
at reasonable prices.
Street vendors are also integral to Indian culture — imagine Mumbai without its
vada pav or Chennai without its roadside dosai. The law was enacted to acknowledge
this reality. It aimed to ‘protect’ and ‘regulate’ street vending in cities, with State-
level rules and schemes, and execution by Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) through by-
laws, planning, and regulation. The Act clearly delineates the roles and
responsibilities of both vendors and various levels of government. It recognises the
positive urban role of vendors and the need for livelihood protection. It commits to
accommodating all ‘existing’ vendors in vending zones and issuing vending
certificates. The Act establishes a participatory governance structure through Town
Vending Committees (TVCs) and mandates that street vendor representatives must
constitute 40% of TVC members, with a sub-representation of 33% of women street
vendors. These committees are tasked with ensuring the inclusion of all existing
vendors in vending zones. Additionally, the Act outlines mechanisms for addressing
grievances and disputes, proposing the establishment of a Grievance Redressal
Committee chaired by a civil judge or judicial magistrate. Its provisions set a crucial
precedent for inclusive and participatory approaches to address street vending needs
in cities, at least in theory.
Three broad challenges
However, the Act has faced three broad challenges. First, at the administrative level,
there has been a noticeable increase in harassment and evictions of street vendors,
despite the Act’s emphasis on their protection and regulation. This is often due to an
outdated bureaucratic mindset that views vendors as illegal entities to be cleared.
There is also a pervasive lack of awareness and sensitisation about the Act among
state authorities, the wider public, and vendors themselves. TVCs often remain
under the control of local city authorities, with limited influence from street vendor
representatives. And the representation of women vendors in TVCs is mostly
tokenistic.
Second, at the governance level, existing urban governance mechanisms are often
weak. The Act does not integrate well with the framework established by the 74th
Constitutional Amendment Act for urban governance. ULBs lack sufficient powers
and capacities. Schemes like the Smart Cities Mission, laden with resources and
pushed through as policy priorities from the top-down, mostly focus on
infrastructure development and ignore the provisions of the Act for the inclusion of
street vendors in city planning.
Third, at the societal level, the prevailing image of the ‘world class city tends to be
exclusionary. It marginalises and stigmatises street vendors as obstacles to urban
development instead of acknowledging them as legitimate contributors to the urban
economy. These challenges are reflected in city designs, urban policies, and public
perceptions of neighbourhoods.
The way forward
While the Act is progressive and detailed, its implementation requires support,
possibly (and ironically) necessitating top-down direction and management starting
from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. This needs to be decentralised over
time to ensure effectiveness in addressing the diverse needs and contexts of street
vendors nationwide. PM SVANidhi, a micro-credit facility for street vendors, has
been a positive example in that direction. There is a strong need to decentralise
interventions, enhance the capacities of ULBs to plan for street vending in cities, and
move away from high-handed department-led actions to actual deliberative
processes at the TVC level. Urban schemes, city planning guidelines, and policies
need to be amended to include street vending.
The Act now faces new challenges such as the impact of climate change on vendors,
a surge in the number of vendors, competition from e-commerce, and reduced
incomes. The Act’s broad welfare provisions must be used creatively to meet the
emerging needs of street vendors. The sub-component on street vendors in the
National Urban Livelihood Mission needs to take cognisance of the changed realities
and facilitate innovative measures for addressing needs. The case of the Street
Vendors Act highlights the complex interplay of contestation over space, workers in
urban areas, and governance, offering valuable lessons for future lawmaking and
implementation.

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Implementing the Street Vendors

May 01, 2024 02:33 am | Updated 02:33 am IST

ARAVIND UNNI, SHALINI SINHA

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