Vendors and Informal Sector: A Case-Study of Street Vendors of Surat City

Abstract: Street vending is an important activity related to informal sector in urban areas. Majority of street vendors are illiterate or educated at primary level. They have low skill and poor economic condition. Street vending provides job opportunity and means of livelihood to the urban poor but urban Local Bodies consider it as illegal activity so far. In 2004, first time, Government of India recognizes vendor’s role in local economy after so many litigations and Supreme Court verdict in favour of vendors. National Policy on Urban Street Vendor, 2004 and 2009, Model Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, 2009 are some of the initiatives taken by the Government. Other agencies like NASVI and SEWA have played major role to push vendors issue and formulation of policies in favour of street vendors. The present study comprehensively covers the social economic and spatial issues for the Surat City. An attempt has also been made to compare the situation of street vendors of Surat to other Indian Cities like Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Patna, Pune etc. The condition of Surat street vendors was found more or less same in comparison to other cities. The planning framework for integration of street vendors of Surat is based on comprehensive survey of 23 market located in different parts of the City. Broad recommendation for inclusion of street vending has been given under the preview of Nation Policy on Urban street Vendors.

This paper is Working Paper 15 in the CUE Working Papers Series. More information and other related research papers are available on the website of the Center for Urban Equity at CEPT University.