Inclusive Design for Street Vendors in India

Center for Urban Equity, CEPT University

27 February 2014
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Inclusive Design for Street Vendors in India is a handbook aimed at presenting the possibility
of inclusion of vendors within the urban planning process. It reviews few cases of inclusion of
vendors across cities in India and states design principles for their inclusion. It is an output of the
research project Making Space for the Poor: Law, Rights, Regulation and Street-TRADE in the
21st Century, awarded to Cardiff University by the UKs Economic and Social Research Council and
Department for International Development. Centre of Urban Equity (CUE), CEPT University is the
research partner of the project and SEWA (Self Employed Womens Association), Ahmedabad is the
NGO partner. The handbook is a joint output of CUE- CEPT University, Cardiff University and SEWA.
For generations, street vending has provided vibrancy, color and a MARKET outlet in Indian cities.
However, as the 21st century progresses, the dynamic growth of city populations, the scale of
physical development, and globalizing economies create new challenges for street vendors, who
face changing political, economic and social contexts and increasing competition for space.
Today, modern street vending plays a vital role in the urban economy, as a source of jobs, revenue
and value added to the economy. Street vending provides a flexible link in economic supply
chains, gives vitality to urban streets, and provides affordable goods for many urban residents. Yet
street vending exacerbates congestion at busy sites (e.g.: city centers where competition for space
is acute) and vendors lack the facilities for decent work.

This Design Guide explores the challenges of managing street vending in modern
India, and explores how inclusive urban design can generate imaginative use of
space.
The Design Guide adopts a rights-based approach to development, building on the paradigm of
the right to the city, which argues for a right for all urban inhabitants to access the benefits of
urban life, including street vendors. The guide draws on work undertaken by the Centre for Urban
Equity at CEPT University, and is part of the ESRC/DFID research program entitled Making Space for
the Poor: Law, Rights, Regulation and Street Trade in the 21st Century, run by Cardiff University.

Integrating Vendors in City Planning

On 16th April Ms Oriard presented her research on integration of street vendors in city planning
describing the case of Bhadra Plaza, Ahmedabad. Ms Oriard is a PhD candidate at Development
Planning Unit, Bartlett School of Architecture, London; she did MSc in urban and regional planning
and has been working as senior planner in Paris since 2006. In CEPT University she has been
working as a research assistant under UKNA fellowship. Her research has been guided by Professor
Madhu Barthi from Faculty of Planning.
This article describes the authors view on the integration and evolution of street vending in
Ahmedabad describing the case of Bhadra Plaza as presented by Ms Oriard.

Ahmedabad has been recently ranked as the 3rd fastest growing city by Forbes Lists. The local
government has undertaken many ambitious projects like the Sabarmati Riverfront project and Bus
Rapid Transit System and requalification projects like the Kankaria Lake and Bhadra Plaza to uplift
the citys real estate and attract foreign investments by promoting a global image of the city. But
the challenge is not only redefining the citys look and ambiance but also accommodating
contradictory needs. As quoted by Ms Oriard Ahmedabads current dilemma is to promote the
citys image to develop MARKET and simultaneously accommodate the needs of the urban
poor. Street vending is an ecosystem by itself, providing employment and
essential COMMODITIES at affordable prices, indeed it has been an intemperate
activity since decades. After decades of struggle their right to the street has been recently
recognized by the Street Vendors Bill 2014.

The Street Vendors Bill is a big step forward in recognizing the rights of street
vendors not only to get space but also to participate in the decisions about the
city thus creating a co-existing capitalist ecosystem by integrating street vendors in
the citys social and economic life.
The

National
policy of 2009 considers important tools to integrate the street vendors to the
cities. Firstly, it recommends the formation of a Town Vending Committee (TVC)
formed by representatives of the street vendors, the City Commissioner and
different experts such as sociologists and planners. The objective of the TVC is to
integrate vendors to the city not only by giving them a sitting place but to
integrate their interests and give them power to discuss city decisions. Secondly,
it recommends a classification of the streets in three different zones: red, amber
and green. Red is for non-vending zones, amber for vending-with-restrictions
zones and green for vending zones.
From a normative point of view, the Street Vendors Bill (2014) and the National Policy
on Street Vendors (2009) propose an integration of the street vendors which goes
beyond the allocation of space and upgrade vendors to city deciders through the
TVC. However, the implementation of this policy at City level tells another story, partly because
territories are arenas of contradictory interests among different stakeholders, with different power
to decide about the form of the City.

Ahmedabad has approximately 67,000 street vendors and has been classified among
the cities with most street vendors in India. The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation
(AMC) has developed the Street Vendors Scheme in 2009 following the guidelines
proposed by the National policy (2009). The challenge for AMC has been to define
general rules that set city scale principles, while at the same time develop planning tools
that respond to the specific needs of the vendors at specific locations.
Project slogan for the Bhadra Plaza project: Getting the City to the people says it all. AMC
plans to accommodate maximum vendors along with space for pedestrians and recreational
activities. The Bhadra Plaza has been a hub for vendors since decades because of its prominent
location and easy accessibility. Earlier there were approximately twelve hundred vendors within the
Bhadra vicinity and a total of approximately three thousand in the Bhadra and Manek-Chowk area
but with the renovated plaza AMC plans to give space to approximately six hundred and relocate
the rest in the riverfront area. The vendors have organized groups selling similar commodities and
supported by either some NGO, religion, political party or mutual alliance; the vending spaces are
organized and mutually distributed among these groups. Most of these are family businesses and
not all have licenses which is mandatory to be accounted for re-allocation after renovation. The
vendors need to get REGISTERED with a fee of INR 100 but some vendors are still not interested
as they think they have the right to the space since they have been vending for many years and do
not realize squatting is a serious offence. AMC announced that after renovation spaces will be
allocated to vendors randomly within respective commodity areas while during renovation, to
facilitate their livelihood, AMC has given allowance to occupy spaces on their own in nearby areas.
Street vendors are not liable for any compensation as most vendors are not registered.
But the issue does not end with just providing spaces, there are other issues which may
occur later, like the upliftment of the Plaza to global standards could change the

clientele arriving in Marutis to chauffer driven sedans. The question that may arise is:
Are the stakeholders prepared to move to the next level of entrepreneurship?
One important question that Ms Oriard addressed is the future of the nearby streets, presently
occupied by the street vendors while the plaza is under construction. It is possible that the
displaced and the new street vendors try to keep these streets as a permanent MARKET
location. The actual integration of the street vendors within the area needs
comprehension of the moving patterns of the street vendors within the area, and not
only within the perimeter of the plaza.
As the Bhadra Plaza belongs to a wider MARKET structure, planning should account for the entire
sector not just the plaza. But whatever the scenario maybe Ms Oriard concludes that India is taking
important steps to integrate street vendors though there are some aspects in which the policy can
be improved, especially in the implementation phase.
From her research and experience Ms Oriard concludes that street vendors require not only space
but also integration of their logic:
A street MARKET works under a commercial logic, it requires good accessibility to the area,
places to store the goods, commercial coherence among the markets and the place.

Design and planning can play an important role in enhancing the commercial
potential of the streets, while regulating the increase of economic value of sitting
places that the activity implies.

Bhadra plaza: functions before & after the project

Planning should include a commercial, social and political perspective to understand how
different groups operate in the area and the kind of spatial structures that they form; i.e.
with the shop keepers, with local community, etc. This requires a wider understanding of
the Bhadra plaza in relation to an extended territory occupied by the City MARKET . This
perspective is necessary to make previsions for the evolution of the entire area.
Ms Oriard also emphasizes the need to develop new conceptual tools that consider
street vendors, not only as social and political groups, but also as city actors able to
give commercial form and monetary value to the areas they occupy to sell. Planners
role should not be reduced to merely designing floor plan, and allocating spaces, but could be
extended to a more holistic perspective for the city.

Street Vending as Social and Spatial Organization

On 28th February 2014 Lila Oriard presented her Ph.D thesis in progress at DPU, Bartlett School of
Architecture, University College London at SBST, CEPT.
She has been conducting research on the integration of street vendors in the city of Ahmedabad
planning process.
The focus of her thesis is on the long term social, political and economic effects of street vending
analyzing the case of the City Market in Mexico City. The research uses Systems Theory approach
to establish relations between apparently disconnected elements and Henri Lefebvres Production
of Space theory referring to space as a COMMODITY .

The case study shows how street vending in Mexico City has changed the
communities to adapt and survive with changing times and policies to evolve and
finally become an integral part of the society, not without conflicts.
This work shows the potential of the streets to support a dynamic economy, OFFERING
considerable employment opportunities for many people, but at the same time it highlights the
risks involved in increasing the land value of public spaces as it creates a real estate market and
threatens the actual status quo of public space as open to all.
Though street vending in Mexico has been an ages old business selling local needs and cottage
industry products, the modernization brought by the post half of the 19th Century led to prohibition
of street vending by law in 1951, with the motive to modernize market space the Government
evicted vendors from the city centre, but they continued to settle on streets which led to violent
repression and formation of informal organizations amongst them. Finally the Government had to
agree upon a mutually beneficial solution. This led to relocation of vendors to closed MARKETS
and modernization of Lagunilla Market by replacing wooded stalls with warehouses but most
vendors were not fit for shops and returned to street vending while these closed markets became
important commercial points attracting more street vendors. Political parties soon realized that
permitting street vending would make vendors as well as the middle class satisfied leading to
formation of political alliances at local level and hence they developed an intelligent political
strategy facilitating vendors.

In the 1960s the market was mostly in an unorganized state leading to emergence
of spontaneous leaderships. This process started centralizing the informal
organizations from their decentralized past nature.
These leaders not only exploited and increased the commercial potential of the MARKET but also
served as street managers collecting allowances from vendors for maintaining spaces and
organizing community events.