Street Vendors: What can be done to solve the livelihood of them?
The informal sector includes a significant number of street vendors, among others, that constitute a majority of the poor people. In cities, towns and even in villages throughout the country, thousands of people earn their living by selling a variety of goods in the streets, along the footpaths of Katmandu, the Nepalese capital, including the Ring Road, particularly during the evening time; no space is left for the pedestrians. The vendors sell goods in these places making the pedestrian movement difficult. These vendors are increasing over the years. Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has estimated that more than ten thousand people earn their livelihood through street vending. They sell goods not only along the side of the roads and on footpaths which have been designed for use by pedestrians, but also on the overhead bridges. (ILO, 2004:3) Increasing population pressure at the household level, increasing socio-economic disparities between people and communities, disparities between urban and rural areas, increasing unemployment, unequal land ownership, and difficult rural life in general, and conflict in particular have resulted in livelihood vulnerability in the rural areas of Nepal. People are pursuing internal migration as a way of survival strategy among others to create livelihoods in the urban informal sectors. In this context the present study explores increasing rural-urban migration, increase in the informal sector activities and how that impacts on people’s livelihood in the urban areas of Nepal in general and Kathmandu in particularly with the increasing no of street vendors.
Vending business is not a new phenomenon. Its historical background is as long as the history of mankind itself. Above 80 percent of the people of Nepal live in rural areas and the majority of them are poor. Their livelihood depends on subsistence farming. There is no gainful employment in other sectors. This has pushed people out of their villages in search of a better existence in the cities. Most of the migrants lack education. They are unable to get employment in the formal sector. They have to settle for work in the informal sector. (Cahn, 2002, in www.devnet.org.nz) Not only have these rural people entered the informal sector for their survival, but other people also have as they have lost their jobs in the formal sector because of closures, downsizing or mergers of offices concerned.
In Nepal, industrial development has not yet taken place in the real sense of the term. The less the industrial development implies that fewer are the jobs in the formal sector. In Nepal, there are limited employment opportunities in the formal sector that has limited the access to opportunities to all. However, the poor people are rather involved in informal businesses either in the form of self-employment or in the business of others.
The informal sector includes a significant number of street vendors, among others, that constitute a majority of the poor people. In cities, towns and even in villages throughout the country, thousands of people earn their living by selling a variety of goods in the streets. As jobs are limited in the rural areas, and agriculture sector is not able to consume all of the additional manpower, most of the poor people, with limited or no skills, have migrated to Kathmandu valley in search of better livelihood. These people are not competent for contesting jobs in the formal sector as they lack formal education. In such a backdrop, most of them get self-employed as street vendors. In the case of Nepal, the formal sector can currently provide job opportunities to less than 10 percent of the employed labor force (UNDP. 22-09-06)
It is hard to measure the economic impact that street vendors have on the economy. Their sales are almost informal with no record in the national GDP, while it is also difficult to estimate because of the lack of proper accounting in place. They pay taxes on neither the revenues nor personal income. Given this nature of the engagement, it is extremely difficult to make exact estimates of this underground economy as there is no record even of the number of street vendors that operate. Gotter and Budd (2005:77) Additionally, with no accounting system in place it is even more of an uphill task to reflect the volume of the business and analyze the impact they make on the economy or on the employment status in the country as well as on the other sectors.
This informal sector plays an important role in providing livelihood to a significant number of people. A rough estimation from the official records of KMC reveals that it is the main source of livelihood for over 30 thousand people. A study conducted by this writer found that a street vender earns on an average Rs. 200 per day as net profit. The variability of net profit is large.
However, each vendor earns a minimum of Rs. 6,000 a month. Most of the people have succeeded in maintaining their expenses including health and education.( KC, B.K,2003) .
There are confrontations between authorities and vendors over licensing, taxation and encroachment of public places and pavements. In spite of its crucial role for providing employment and livelihoods to both urban and rural poor, its economic importance is rarely recognized either in national poverty reduction strategies or in city governance initiatives. Urban authorities take it as an illegal and unproductive sector, and their response to street trading is, too often, harassment of traders and eviction, which causes conflict between authorities and vendors.
Now, it’s time to think can they allow selling as usual .Is this footpath for them or for us to walk? What policies can create win-win situation?
References
IDMC Nepal (2006), “Population Figures and Profile, Sub-section: Global figures”, in http://www.internal-displacement.org, accessed on 21-01-07.
ILO, (2004), The Informal Economy & Workers in Nepal, International Labour Organization (ILO), Series 1, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Jones, L. and Somekh, B. (2004), “Observation”, in Research Methods in the Social Sciences, edited by Somekh, B. and Lewin, C. (2004), Sage Publication, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi.
Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D. Pratt, G. and Watts, M. (2000), The Dictionary of Human Geography, 4th Edition, Blackwell Publishers.
KC, B.K (2003), “Internal Migration in Nepal”, Population Monograph of Nepal, CBS,
Maxwell, J.A. (1996), Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach, Applied Social Research Methods Series Volume 41, Sage Publication, Thousand Oaks, London.
Kathmandu municipality,Annual report,2000
Thank you Sally for raising important issue with details. I think problem due to street vending in Nepal has its roots in exclusive type of development policies and their discriminatory interventions. As we see almost all of the services and opportunities highly concentrate in urban centers and villages have rare, if ever, these opportunities. As a result livelihoods for rural people is not so easy. Therefore people from villages are perusing rural to urban migration as their livelihood strategy as you have mentioned in the post above. Migrant people find street vending the easiest strategy to sustain their livelihood. Despite of sustaining livelihoods for many people it is disturbing city life because government has no clear plan and policy to manage street vending in Kathmandu and elsewhere in Nepal. We can not stop them doing their life saving business just because that disturbed while walking along the footpath! So It would be great if we could put pressure on government to implement effective plans and policies to manage this problem.
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