Hawkers make metros money streets of India

Kolkata, Apr 26 (UNI) If you think the hawkers are a struggling lot, think twice. Their annual turnover in Kolkata itself is a whopping Rs 8,700 crore.

OXFAM, the NGO, reveals that street vending is truly an ''integral part of urban economy and is a result of urban unemployment and struggle''. Mumbai, the financial capital of the country of course, leads the bandwagon. Mumbai's hawkers turnover is Rs 12,000 crore followed by Delhi, which has Rs 10,000 crore turnover.

With the recent Kolkata High Court ruling on railway hawker eviction in the backdrop, Kolkata Corporation authority has a lot to say on the issue. Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya also admits the street vendors' inevitable presence.

''Hawkers are integral part of our society and they should be regulated in a balanced way,'' he said adding that the Corporation is not in favour of hawkers eviction but regulating them properly.

''For intance we have asked the hawkers to stay 50 feet away from the main carriage ways, use Corporation specified umbrellas, seek street licence etc,'' he said.

''We have to accommodate them on our roads. Dalhousie being the main hub for food vendors, we are thinking of even introducing mobile vans for vending,'' he added.

Various surveys also mention that hawkers sell 75 per cent of the vegetables in urban Indian vegetable market because there is a huge crisis in organised municipal markets. Tea hawkers in every nukkad (small crossings) in urban India were also strong social outlets for the poor and middle class population.

Another study on the food hawkers of India conducted by All India Institute of Hygiene&Public Health highlighted that the food hawkers provide 1000 kilocalories of food value in just Rs seven. The food hawkers of India sell more then 200 types of food items that provide a vast variety of choice to the urban poor population.

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