In most of the cities in Kerala, the general perception regarding street vendors is that they cause traffic congestion in cities and sanitation problems on the streets. They are often harassed by the police, traffic officials and local authorities.
The law on street vending that came in 2014 is still in the process of implementation in many cities of Kerala, with very few having drafted bye laws for smoother regulation of street vending.
The law promotes street vending as a cost effective distribution of goods and services for the common public. Unfortunately , the city administration , while formulating plans of street vending, often neglect the commercial potential of the area in designating an area as a zone. This results in relocation of vendors to zones with less footfall and traffic, thereby losing the income they used to earn in busy market areas.
A possible solution to the problem of traffic congestion in vending areas is relocation of auto stands, taxi stands, designation of one-way traffic in congested roads and allocation of fixed spaces and kiosks for street vendors.
Most of the street vendors in Kochi and Alappuzha lack public toilet facilities. They often use the toilet facilities available at Bus stations, petrol pumps or nearby shops. The absence of essential civic facilities force them to take the leftovers and waste to their houses. A proper waste management system is available only to a few vendors. The TVC while preparing the street vending plans have to incorporate the provisions of more public toilets, waste disposal facilities and drinking water facilities near the vending zones.
The local authority shall in consultation with the planning authority and on recommendation of the TVC shall prepare a street vending plan to promote vending. It has to be prepared every five years.
The street vending plan includes the following provisions:
The Town Vending Committee is responsible for the following:
Formulating and implementing a street vending plan is often complicated given the number of stakeholders involved. The street vending plan should be done inclusively, wherein, various stakeholders are involved right from the initial stages of the planning process. The town planning department, NULM department, traffic officials , welfare standing committee, citizens, street vendors and the street vendors unions play essential role in the planning process. The existence of multiple departments may result in duplicity of plans, if planning is not done with consultation of all stakeholders. It is also essential so that the development projects could be considered a part of the street vending plan. For example, it is essential to know about road widening proposals put forth by the Department of Town Planning so that when allocating zones in an area, the proposal could be given in such a way that it aligns with the road widening proposal as it would ensure more vending space and pedestrian walkway. Moreover, vending is common near tourist sites and archeological sites. Thus, in cities where heritage and tourism projects are in progress, the understanding of these projects is significant in smoother implementation and incorporation of vending spaces around the tourist spots.
When making a street vending plan, an important aspect is to have the planning designed in a participatory manner. The issues from the eye of a planner or designer would not give a complete picture of the actual situation on ground. For this reason, vendors need to be extensively included as they would have ideas as to how spaces could be used efficiently and how conflicts could be resolved quickly. Taking their suggestion on space allotment, vending timings, collection of fees, can help better manage street vending. Bringing in a more participatory approach of all relevant stakeholders that are relevant to the or city where the street vending is implemented will be imperative in easier implementation of vending plans. It is preferable to propose vending zones, where there are existing vendors rather than planning for a complete relocation of an existing vending area.
One of the major missing elements, however, is that the street vending law does not mention how to deal with situations of natural calamities. Vendors often vend using infrastructures that are not strong enough and thus get severely affected even during heavy rains. Nothing mentioned about what resilience would be adopted to ensure that vendors and their items would be safe during such calamities.
They end up losing their livelihood and not having an alternate source of income during such challenging times. Most Indian cities also have poor street design and poor stormwater drainage. This is one of the main reasons for flooding in urban areas and the water gets into the vendors' kiosk vendors' kiosks.
Principles for Vending:
The principles for street vending covers all the aspects to be looked into when preparing a street vending plan. However these principles also need to be prioritised by the municipalities. Depending on its road characteristics, each state can have a priority list of the guiding principles of street vending. During the field study and interaction with the Municipality in Alappuzha and Kochi, it was found that the zones proposed for vending did not prioritise the footfall in an area. The proposed areas were inside gated compounds and behind bus stands which is away from the vicinity of pedestrians and in a secluded area with lesser footfall. Footfall is a major deciding factor when proposing a zone, and vendors prefer to sell only in areas with increased footfall. If they are not given such zones, they would sit in areas that are not included under the vending zone.
It is also high time that the threshold on the number of street vendors currently at 2.5 percent city's population, town, zone and ward, must be revisited. Metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore with a higher population would find this threshold inadequate to accommodate all vendors.
Additionally, changes in master plan, development plan, zonal plan, layout plan and any other plan also need to be considered when making the street plan. There could be times where master plans could be coinciding, for example city master plans could overlap with AMRUT master plans. The time frame between the preparation of a master plan and its sanction is often extended due to the bureaucracy involved, this results in a situation where when one master plan is sanctioned, another plan is already in progress which would overlap the previous plan.
As per the Act, a “vending zone” means an area or a place or a location designated as such by the local authority, on the recommendations of the Town Vending Committee, for the specific use by street vendors for street vending and includes footpath, sidewalk, pavement, embankment, portions of a street, waiting area for public or any such place considered suitable for vending activities and providing services to the general public.
The classification of vending zones are as follows:
Figure 2: Restricted vending based on road width
The table above shows the restricted vending based on the road widths. Along with this, the following is also to be considered when classifying street vending zones:
Although the Act defines how a vending zone should be and what it should ideally constitute, it is seen that the local authorities and TVC do not abide by all the parameters given. could either be due to the lack of a feasible area or negligence of what could benefit a street vendor. In the town of Alappuzha there are vending zones stretching as long as 2.4km with just a handful of vendors (about 7-10). Hence, there arises a question as to the rationale behind defining such stretches as a vending zone. Some of these stretches also have a less footfall which shows the reason as to why there are only a handful of vendors. Some zones lack basic facilities such as proper infrastructure, sanitation, waste management, water availability, electricity and storage spaces.
There is also no clarity on what exactly is a “restricted vending zone” and how to differ from “vending zone”. Since no definition is provided, confusions exist as to whether these restrictions include time based restriction, vehicular traffic restriction, vending restricted to weekly vending
Given the lack of uniformity in the road width in most cities of Kerala, a one size fits all approach for identifying restricted vending zones in cities is not ideal. For example, the Kerala State Scheme allows two side stationary vending only if the road width is 30m or above.
However, in reality, most of the roads in Kerala account for lesser road widths other than the National Highways. Stationary vending in Kerala is allowed on one side if the road width is between 12m and 24m. However, if the number of vendors in a particular zone is too many, this would lead to clustering and congestion of vendors on the same side. It could also result in vendors not getting sufficient space as there are certain other norms like providing space of 1m between the vending kiosks for unrestricted movement. To address this issue a suggestion would be to follow a zig-zag or diagonal pattern of vending so that vendors could be accommodated on both sides without any congestion. It can be done on roads with a width of 12 to 24 metres.
