Introduction

1. Urban regulation for self-employed informal workers

Sally Roever & Michael Rogan

2. Disambiguating legalities: Street vending, law, and boundary work in Mexico City

Tiana Bakić Hayden

3. Power dynamics and the regulation of street vending in the urban space: The law on the books and the law on the ground in Accra and Dakar

Teresa Marchiori & Pamhidzai Bamu

4. Differential effects of vending formalisation in New York City, USA

Ryan Thomas Devlin

5. Local government regulations and the dispossession of urban informal vendors in Delhi, India

Ankit Kumar Singh & Roshni Yadav

6.     Impact of new planning policies on sustenance and inclusivity of street trading in Dhaka: A critical review of Detailed Area Plan 2016–2035

Nabanita Islam

7. Advocating for a livelihood-centric master plan: Learnings from Delhi

Malavika Narayan, Shalini Sinha & Avi Singh Majithia

8. Turbulent transformations and urban undesirables: Revanchist urban transition and street-based sex work in Bangalore

Neethi P & Anant Kamath

9. Overlooked mobility: Domestic workers commuting in Bogotá, Medellín, and São Paulo

Valentina Montoya-Robledo

10.  New perspectives on the work of waste pickers: The construction of a 'recycling node' in Mercedes, Argentina

Verónica V. Puricelli

11.  Pursuing aspirations for decent sanitation work: How informal workers navigate the universe of rules that shape sanitation practices in urban Africa

Julian Walker, Adriana Allen, Ibrahim Bakarr Bangura, Pascale Hofmann, Wilbard Kombe, Nelly Leblond, Tatu Mtwangi Limbumba, Catarina Simões Mavila Magaia, Claudy Vouhé and Julia Wesely

12.  Urban informal workers’ COVID-19 compliance: Evidence on social capital and enforcement politics from Indonesia

Ying Gao

13.  Informal work and the social function of the city: A framework for legal reform in the urban and spatial environment

Thomas Coggin

We found that there have been accusations that the Delhi state government reaps political benefits on the behest of implementing the Street Vendors Act (SVA). Such a claim finds its basis in section 2.1.1 of the 2019 Delhi scheme, which states that to be eligible for a certificate of vending, the vendor must be a registered voter of the national capital territory of Delhi. Vendors are required to procure voter ID cards during a survey to be given an acknowledgement of inclusion in the survey. Various vendor organisations, such as Janpahal, have argued that such an addition to the scheme is contentious and exclusionary, which goes against the nature of the SVA. Many vendors in the capital city are migrants from other states and do not possess a voter ID card. Vendor activists foresaw exclusions in the survey due to this clause and argued that it be removed. But instead of removing the clause, the TVC members found a way around the limitation: In the absence of a voter ID card, Aadhaar cards have also been accepted. Nevertheless, such a clause in the scheme makes the migrant vendors vulnerable to exploitation. 

When spaces are declared as no-vending zones, vendors operating in the area become illegal vendors. When the Chandni Chowk Sarv Vyapar Mandal challenged the validity of the SVA, it was noted that even after an eviction in the no-vending zone of Chandni Chowk, vendors continued to squat. In this regard, the court questioned the nature of the coalition between the local authorities (the police) and the vendors. In this case, the court had called out the lack of political and executive will to remove the “illegal” vendors from the streets of Delhi (Jha, 2022). Through this statement, a remark was made on the informal arrangements that are allowed to exist between the local authorities and the vendors. The court also stressed that the order does not intend to evict or cause poor people to lose their livelihood but wants vending to be regularised and done according to a plan. The matter that remains undiscussed in this discourse is the position of precarity into which the arbitrary declaration of spaces as no-vending zones puts the vendors.   The discussion in the section above throws light on the institutional shortcomings that hinder the formalisation process of street vending. However, due to the informal nature of the production relations within street vending, there is another side to these institutional shortcomings. These informal arrangements give rise to vested interests, which furthers the state's inability to formalise the activity. Alongside employing millions of poor people in the country, street vending has the potential to be a huge source of income for local governments; a massive chunk of this income, however, is unaccounted for. Various studies in the past have tried to capture the magnitude of this unaccounted-for income. This unaccounted income has been described as “dead capital” by Hernando de Soto. These illegal payments lead to a loss of capital (Soto, 2000 as cited in Saha 2017, p. 133), which builds the narrative that street vending is a productive activity with no positive contributions to the economy in the form of taxes. 

According to a study conducted by an NGO, Manushi, in 2001, approximately ₹ 500 million (USD 6,016,870) was extorted from street vendors and rickshaw pullers working in Delhi as bribes (Chandra, Jain, and Centre for Civil Society 2015, p.14). These extortionary relations between vendors and states are prevalent across states and regions. However, the state is not the only actor that regulates and controls street vending. It acts in nexus with local thugs, with whom the vendors find informal forms of legitimacy. If a vendor works with the local thugs, they are protected against harassment and bribes demanded by the police (Sharma, 2000, as cited in Weinstein, 2008). According to a study by R. N. Sharma, around ₹ 1200 million is collected as hafta from the vendors, while the amount collected in licence fees amounts to ₹ 120 million.  As is evident, a major chunk of the income of street vendors goes into payments of bribes and “haftas” to police, local authorities and other actors. According to a study by Saha, this unaccounted income ranges from 5-20% of a vendor’s daily income. Around 39% of vendors in Saha’s study paid 5-10% of their monthly income as bribes, while 10-25% for around 21% (Saha, 2017, p. 153). If this “dead capital” is transformed into “active capital” through formalisation and effective implementation of the Street Vendors Act, it can add considerably to the government exchequer. It would also transform the narrative of the “unproductivity” of this enterprise from being a “nuisance” to an essential part of the economy. According to the vendors, the right to sell has been earned through the payment of bribes and penalties. Still, since these channels are informal and outside the law, this right continuously comes under attack by the “legitimate” forces of the state. The temporary and informal sanctions revived by the vendors are given on “humanitarian” grounds of “pragmatic politics”. In return for this sanction, bribes in various forms are taken.  These forms of bribes can be postulated as layers of extortion. The vendors of weekly markets or vendor associations are protected by the structures in place. These structures limit the form and extent of extortion suffered. As in the case of the Daryaganj Market, the amount taken from the unregistered vendors is not much higher than the rent taken from the old/registered vendors. But since no receipts are given, it goes unaccounted for. Sharma calls them ‘concealed’ hawkers (Narang and Sabharwal, n.d). These associations that vendors come together to form are crucial in the fight for legitimacy. The vendors of Prabhu Market had not been given legal status and were subject to extortionary practices. Prabhu Market is a case of “concealed hawkers” being formalised after years of struggle through the medium of an association. 

The Chandni Chowk Sarv Vyapar Mandal case, which is being contested in the High Court, questions the presence of “concealed vendors” in the no-hawking zone. This presence had been warranted by the bribe that was paid to the police. Usually, bribes are used as a tool in exchange for an informal permit to sell because hawking is illegal in most lucrative areas (Saha, 2017), such as Chandni Chowk. In both cases, some alliance had existed between the vendors and the police. The most vulnerable in this segment are those without this illegal form of protection. The mobile vendors without the protection accorded by any market or associations and without any informal, illegal alliance with the police are the most extorted. This group is usually unaware of its rights and falls prey to excessive fines. During our interviews, we encountered a case where an old female mobile vendor selling socks was fined ₹ 2000 (24 USD) for vending without permission. In this case, the amount charged as fines is arbitrary, and the poor, illiterate vendors are mostly unaware of the recourse that can be taken. Unaware of the existence of the Street Vendors Act and its rules and schemes, they are not informed that the amount charged by the police is inconsistent with those of the rules and schemes. 

Vendors operating in weekly markets, where a large amount can be collected cumulatively, are another instance of vendors that receive prolonged protection from the police through payment of bribes. In such cases, other actors such as politicians and local thugs also have a stake in the existence and continuance of the market and negotiate on behalf of the vendors. But this form of protection is also arbitrary and informal. Such is the case of Sarojini Nagar Market in South Delhi. Vendors to whom we spoke acknowledged that such a nexus exists but declined to give us any details about how the arrangement works. After the case of Sodan Singh v N.D.M.C. & Ors (1992), the Thareja committee was appointed to verify vendors' claims to formalise street vending in Delhi. It reported that due to a nexus between the police and local politicians, vendors of that market were never harassed by the police. Hence, these vendors did not own any receipts through which their claims could be verified. The Sarojini Market has been running on these informal arrangements and is a famous Delhi shopping hub. In the recent past, vendors have been facing lockdowns from the authorities, and there have been frequent clashes of interest with market shop owners. The case of this market proves that such arrangements never accord complete and permanent protection. In the case of some local weekly markets which function with the approval of the MCD, a system of daily receipt of  ₹15 exists, which is given by the MCD and paid for by the vendors. The officials often do not record the name and location on these receipts. These unaccounted-for receipts and fees are a source of illegitimate income for the officials. Due to the fear of losing this side income, the local government lets the market function unregulated and beyond its sanctioned capacity.  

Vendors with rights protected by law are also unsafe from extortion. Even after formalisation, there are some loopholes which allow for extortion. The provision for declaring a zone as a vending or no vending zone remains arbitrary. The Certificate of vending does not specify the location allocated to the vendor. Bribes are extorted to allow vendors back to their original vending site, like in the Prabhu Market case study. The vendors also claim that even though the schemes and rules for Delhi, based on the act, specify the rates at which the vendors can retrieve their goods captured by the MCD, the officials continue to levy their fines based on the provisions of the Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) Act. While the scheme provides fees ranging from ₹ 50-100 for retrieving the goods, the amount levied ranges from ₹ 1000-2000. The arrangement for retrieving the goods remains highly informal, leaving the vendors at the mercy of the authorities. ). This section problematised the structural hindrances the street vendors faced on their right to vend through red-tapism, penalties and vote-bank politics. 

The chapter starts by laying down the realities and envisions of the much-celebrated Street Vending Act and traces it in two of the most prominent markets in New Delhi. The shortcomings of the SVA and its regulations lie in red tape, its exclusionary nature, and multiple loopholes, which allow structural hindrances like the absence of proper documentation, vote-bank politics, and excessive penalties and bribes to proliferate. The informal vendors in urban spaces are not merely deprived of adequate social security measures and safety nets. Still, they are also subjected to harassment and bribery from the state and its machinery. The segmented population of vendors are differentially treated for extorting bribes. Women street vendors, in particular, engage in commodity production and social reproduction, which has largely been overlooked. The policy once envisioned to provide social safety and empower vendors, can be seen as failing because of modifications, implementation and vested interests of neoliberal capitalism and local mafias. Some of these arguments made in this chapter were supported by the case studies of Daryaganj and Prabhu Markets, thereby providing the empirical foundation and robustness to the argument of dispossession in the contemporary neoliberal regime. 

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