MANSI CIRCLE VEGETABLE MARKET

Vegetable market located in MANSI CHOWK is a daily market. Surrounded by higher and higher middle income group residential societies. It has around 270 hawkers out of which 210 are women hawkers. The market has been developed by AUDA, with advertising rights to Reliance Company. The market is based on the main arterial road, over 30 meters wide. The traffic load on the road is very high and the customers commuting prefer making stoppage and buy vegetables from the market. The market is organized and maintained well by the vendors, for their and customer convenience. Use of stools, shades from sun and electronic weighing machine is done.

Imphal –Ima Keithel

Ima(Mother) keithel(market)or Nupi(Women)keithel is one of the largest market of the world which is only managed by women. Around 3000 stalls are being managed by women. This reflects the independent spirit and enterprise of the Manipuri women. Folklore advocates that Goddess Ima protects these women. The bazaar remains open from 9 in the morning till 7 in the evening.

The tribal women display a range of items from food items such as fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, fish and honey to clothes and woolens. Traditional and tribal costumes in brilliant hues attract the tourists who pay this market a visit. The tribal men of the region handcraft the metal and carved wooden jewelry on display in this market.

The Ima Market, located on either side of the thoroughfare, is a cheery, tourist hotspot and probably the best locale to catch the local culture.

Dilli darwaza: women dominance

One of the most common vending amongst women is vending old clothes. There is a huge market for old clothes dominated by women. They get these old clothes by bartering for utensils, which they sell, going door to door. After walking for hours in sun with a massive load of utensils on head, women collect old clothes, wash and repair them and then sell them, again by sitting for hours on the road. The money in reinvested in the business.
Dilli darwaza is an old and huge market of old clothes. There one can see around 300 women sitting on road with heaps of clothes of all kind, some organized some not. Along the road sit many tailors doing the repair jobs.

WHY NOT WOMEN

Street vending is one of the few readily accessible entrance of employment open to women who need to earn a living. The low cost entry in various types of hawking and vending and schedule flexibility, are the major factors for hawking. According to study, we realize that women in this sector are the most underprivileged, working more or equal to men and earning nearly half. Women also juggle family and work responsibilities continuously with extra burden of securing themselves of socially and physically. Women has all the potential to do better for themselves and family, if facilitated properly

Self Employed Women’s Association

SEWA is an organisation of poor and self-employed women workers. It is a trade union registered in 1972.SEWA has been working for street vendors and focusing on women vendors. SEWA has been conducting various surveys and research and has been continuously persuading government for bringing up new schemes for betterment of these vendors. We go in contact with SEWA to understand an NGO’s perspective and their goals regarding sectors like this.

We also attended SEWA’s trade union meeting of women vendors. We got opportunity to meet various representatives of women vendors from across the city and got to know their experiences and problems in the trade.

Now, looking at hawking…

Looking at the system of hawking in different ways, helped in wholistic understanding of the complexity involved. The same system can be viewed, understood and modeled with different pivotal points.

Hawking according to the different type of merchandise and different modes of hawking.

TEEN DARWAZA MARKET: a case study

The Teen Darwaza market is surrounded by residential area, which falls just adjoining to the zone of government institutions. Besides, there are also some public buildings like Premabhai Hall, Bhadrakali Temple nearby. This type of mixed landuse around the market makes the function of market as a neighborhood level market. It sells almost everything ranging from fish, meat, and vegetables to articles of daily use, footwear, bags, toys etc. there are around 3000 street vendors in this market and around 15,000-20,000 customers visit Teen Darwaza everyday. It is interesting to know that informal market in this area serves much more customers than the formal shops in the same area. People believe that the street vendors give a much better bargain there than the shops.
Unbelievably, the street vendors on both sides of the road and the parking together have reduced the road width to one-third, but still this old settlement is not questioned much, because of the service it offers.

MANEK CHOWK- witnessing our street food culture

If one wants to witness the age-old street food culture of Ahmedabad (or I should say, India), then Manek Chowk is a must visit place. Located in the centre of the old city, Manek Chowk is one of the oldest markets. Mostly occupied by goldsmiths and silversmiths during the working day hours. But it’s a completely different picture at night after the shops close down. The market suddenly transforms into a complete food bazaar with street food vendors occupying the space out side the closed shops with their lorries. It is fascinating to see how the quality of space transforms within an hour or two. It looks more like a food festival with tables and chairs arranged along the road and the variety of food available. Amazingly the small lorries are well equipped with everything that might be needed by them or the costumers.
People from all over the city come to this place to enjoy the culture and the atmosphere together with the delicious food.

JAMALPUR VEGETABLE MARKET

Jamalpur vegetable market, located near Sardar Bridge is a daily market. It has around 1056 total vendors out of which 60% are women vendor all operating without license, selling various vegetables and fruits which are procured from APMC vegetable market. APMC is a wholesale market where business takes place through the day giving vendors flexibility of schedule for procurement of vegetables. The market starts at 5am till late night, where variety of vendors set up their business on lorries, tokries and on ground, catering to the needs of various consumer coming from different parts of Ahmedabad. A number of costumers are the retail seller at other markets of the City.

SUNDAY MARKET: a case study

Sunday market, along Sabarmati River is an example of one of the oldest street market in Ahmedabad. It’s a weekly bazaar which is managed by a Non government Organization called Ahmedabad Gujjari Association. It has around 1200 licensed vendors and 200 non-licensed, selling a range of articles from major, minor household stuff, clothes, food, to antiques, books, electronics etc. Together with a variety of vendors from small rowing ones to big pitched ones, one can also see a variety of consumers. A number of people wait for Sundays for this specific market. This system also gives hawkers the opportunity to prepare and collect the items over the week to sell on the weekend.

GOVERNMENT’S TAKE

As per Supreme Court guidelines, there is provision in the Municipal Corporation Act to issue license to a required number of hawkers in a city. There is also provision to specify different levels of hawking zones in the city and regulate the activity accordingly. Although the amount of such spaces and licenses specified is very less compared to the present number and requirement of vendors in the city. Moreover, AMC has not issued any license since 1960, making almost all the vendors illegal. Therefore the hawkers are subject to forceful removal by AMC from the streets.

It is also interesting to note that many of the upcoming urban plans have least consideration for the street hawkers. Those, which have, talk about inadequate relocation of street vendor in areas of less business potential. Although AMC is making policies for street hawkers but its long way till they are implemented.

How often have we stopped on our way to somewhere to buy something we found selling on the streets? Everyday, I guess. But how many times have we actually acknowledged those hard working street vendors serving us almost everyday.

This blog is an effort to recognize and understand the street hawkers better. We, Swetal and Shipra, students of Product Design at NID, under the guidance of our faculty Praveen Nahar, have taken the initiative to study the system of Street hawking, to be able to enhance the position of these people in society.

Out of the total workforce of India 90% work in the informal sector, out of which 60% are self employed. There are around 1 crore hawkers in India and Ahmedabad itself has around 100,000. Street hawking, besides providing livelihood to a huge percentage of population, is also of utmost convenience to the consumers. It makes required articles readily available and at reasonable price. Street vendors also contribute immensely to the urban economy. A large number of poor populations find it a good means of earning, as it does not require any specific skills, capital and much literacy. It is also beneficial in giving direct market to the small-scale industries.

Since time immemorial, street vending has developed the unique street culture and the true essence on Indian streets.

In order to have a wholistic view we recognized various stakeholders involved in this system, which can be studied in detail so that different perspectives can be understood.