Working Life of Street Vendors in MumbaiThe Indian Journal Of Labour Economics

By Debdulal Saha on January 01, 2011

Abstract: Street vendors in Mumbai are among the most deprived sections of the self-employed workers. This paper tries to portray the ‘working life’ of street vendors in Mumbai. The working life of vendors is explained in terms of their financial conditions and the extent of indebtedness, the amount of bribes they have to pay in order to sustain themselves in the market, their working hours, the issues of public space utilisation, and the legal aspect of their activity. It has been seen from the study that their entire existence and nature of activities are extremely informal and are trust-based. The study is exploratory in nature and their situations have been explained with the help of both quantitative and qualitative paradigms. The study shows that the street vendors borrow from moneylenders not merely for their economic activity but also for social security purposes at an exorbitant rate of interest, which, in turn, leads them to fall into a debt-trap situation. It has been further found that that they have extremely long working hours, which have been continuously increasing over the years. Further, they enjoy neither safety nor security at the work place as they face constant harassment from the local authorities. Hence, the current working hours of the vendors and the safety and security conditions in their workplace, together with extensive rent-seeking by local authorities, contribute to a deteriorating working environment as well as economic deprivation for street vendors.

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