COVID-19 threw street vendors into a deeper state of uncertainty

The COVID-19 pandemic created perturbing disturbances in the economic structure of India, a developing country already dealing with existing socio-economic uncertainties. In March 2020, the Government of India imposed one of the strictest lockdowns in the world. Street vendors in India, an integral part of the nation’s informal economy, were thrown out of their senses with the announcement of a month long lockdown overnight, which left them exposed to the virus, unemployed, and vulnerable

eriodic Labour Force Survey, conducted in 2017-18, found that there were around 11.9 million street vendors in India. With job opportunities decreasing in India and cities having continuous inflow of migrations from rural areas, the profession of street vending became lucrative for the unskilled, uneducated, urban poor to survive.
Challans fined by urban local bodies (ULBs) due to lack of registration and licenses, bribery indirectly asked by government officers, lack of access to social security, rising inflation rates in cities, and debts were already pressing on the shoulders of street vendors when the COVID-19 pandemic hit India. Recognising the urgent need to provide credit for working capital to street vendors to help them survive during the lockdown and to resume their business afterwards, the Government of India in June 2020 launched the PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme, which aimed to facilitate working capital loan of up to `10,000 each to street vendors across the nation’s cities.
However, according to reports published by the Centre for Civil Society, out of 7263 towns across the nation, only 33 per cent have a notified town vending committee (TVC) and only 50 per cent of these notified TVCs have issued ID cards to vendors. Additionally, Thomson Reuters Foundation held a series of interviews last year in New Delhi and found that out of 15 street vendors interviewed, only three said that they had applied for the loan offered under PM SVANidhi, while others said they did not plan to apply because of lack of interest in the amount that is being offered and an unwieldy and unnecessarily complex process of license procurement.
Team Urban Update took interviews of few street vendors located in South Delhi in a bid to understand their situation before and after the pandemic.

Abdul Waheed, a 76-year-old man, sits on a small carpet made out of old bags at the roadside near a bus stop in South Delhi. He remains exposed to the fuming sun in the middle of the afternoon, and as he starts making tea for his third customer of the day, he stays alert for any siren of the municipal corporation van, for they, if caught sight of him, would turn his little source of earning upside down and confiscate all his products. In the little place that he occupies, he sells tea and tobacco, which, ever since the lockdown was lifted, had not produced enough earning to feed his family three meals a day. He clarified that even before the pandemic, his little shop was not bringing him riches, but he was not starved either. To Abdul, the COVID-19 pandemic seems very similar to Delhi’s municipal corporations and police, for both of them have pushed him into living a life of high uncertainty. Nobody knows when the government might impose lockdown again, shutting his source of income, and nobody knows when the police or the ‘committee’ might show up and ask him to pay fine for working as a street vendor, which currently amounts to more than his two weeks’ income. On being asked if he had heard of PM SVANidhi Scheme, he shakes his head to indicate a firm no and then says, “Even if I had come to know about the scheme, I don’t have the documents to prove that I’m a street vendor because nobody ever issued one. All that they ever issue are fines. Fines to work by ourselves because I am not educated or qualified enough to have a job, and neither is my son.”

A young man, Santosh, cooks and sells chole kulche and paranthe on his pushcart near Dera More, and has been able to save only around Rs 150, in comparison to earning Rs 600-800 before March 2020. He said he had heard a lot about the Prime Minister’s scheme to help street vendors during the lockdown, but he had realized very early that the scheme would never reach him because of the lack of an identity card. His relative in Gurugram engaged in a similar business received the amount promised by the government under the scheme, but Santosh never tried to get a license like his relative. This is because he saw his relative pay Rs 50,000 for a street vending license at a place 20 kilometre from his house. Santosh said that therefore, he chose to sell things including his bed and fridge, borrow money from friends instead of trying to find long lost and inexistent documents. “The process of obtaining a license is cumbersome. We have to stand in long lines and lose many days of income, and end up paying a hefty amount to obtain our right of selling on the side of roads. Since we don’t have a smartphone and because of COVID, no one is readily available to lend their laptops, we are forced to go to the office to physically fill out the forms,” said Santosh.

Mohammad Manzur, hailing from Bihar, sells footwear on his pushcart near Fatehpur Beri. He said he has not been able to earn even half the amount that he used to earn before the pandemic. Even Sunday markets fail to bring any crowd, and nothing in the market or sales is comparable to before. He said he has adapted to the habit of sleeping on an empty stomach since the lockdown was imposed in March last year. Even after hearing about the PM SVANidhi scheme, he chose not to apply for it as the amount offered was not enough and the process is hectic.

Another street vendor, Ganesh Chaudhary, and his wife sell eggs a few steps away from Manzur’s cart. His family of six (him, his wife and four children) survive on two carts, which he uses to sell eggs and tobacco from. He asked, “If I’m not stealing or murdering, and am only trying to make an honest living, how come my work of street vending is ‘illegal’ or ‘criminal’, for which I and other vendors are made to face constant insult, harassment, and fines?” Each of the vendor interviewed by Team Urban Update were in a state of uncertainty, almost waiting for the news of lockdown getting imposed again amidst the recent surge in COVID-19 cases, yet praying and hoping that it doesn’t happen. All that street vendors are asking for is the world’s largest democracy to give them a little space to earn, to not name their source of income as ‘illegal’, and to have access to their right to life. It is high time that governments and ULBs step up their efforts to recognize the due significance of street vendors in cities’ economy and daily life on practical ground, otherwise millions of street vendors will have to continue living in extreme vulnerability, under constant uncertainty and threats.