Jeevika campaign organized a panel discussion “Street Vending in India: Law, Liberty & Livelihood” on August 31, 2012 during “Jeevika: Asia Livelihood Documentary Film Festival” in Delhi. The campaign team took the opportunity of having a diverse intellectual audience to showcase campaign work in Rajasthan and Bihar. The objective of the session was to discuss issues, developments, solutions, new central legislation and challenges regarding street vending. The session created awareness regarding street vending as a legitimate occupation of entry level professions in informal economy to enhance livelihood opportunities of urban poor and sensitized audience to look for the possibility of liberal solution.

The panel discussion started with a presentation by Amit Chandra, Jeevika National Coordinator on the campaign work and how our policy advocacy effort is working on getting street vending, rickshaw pulling and artisanship legal recognition. He gave overview of the issues, developments and possible solutions for the problems in entry level professions of informal sector to relive ailing poor. Addressing the audience Amit Chandra said, “Is the problem in our society inequality of outcomes or inequality of opportunity. Inclusive growth requires inclusive reforms. With our effort Rajasthan has passed a legislation to make street vending legitimate part of urban planning. The implementation of the law is yet to take place but it has legally empowered street vendors in the state to protect their right to livelihood and property.”

Dr Parth J. Shah, president of CCS discussed about the liberal market based policy solutions to identified problems of informal sector and mentioned why most of the policy initiatives in past have failed to solve the problems. He said, “Our policy solutions tried so far lacked market based solutions. There have been several policy initiatives to recognize contribution of street vendors in informal economy but no action has been taken so far leaving aside a few. Due to corruption at lower level of bureaucracy urban local bodies have not started implementing policies which allows harassment and extortion of poor street entrepreneurs. The poor street entrepreneurs of Delhi alone are forced to pay bribe of around Rs 144/- Crore. The irony of the day is even after paying such a large amount their means of livelihood is not secure.”

Good amount of time was spent interacting with audience through question answer session. The discussion was moderated by Jeevika Festival Director Mr Manoj Mathew.

Here are a few pictures of the panel discussion:

On Tuesday (10 July, 2012), Centre for Civil Society organized an event to launch the study on cycle rickshaws in city titled “Three Wheels on the Road of Regulation” and discussion on the same “Cycle Rickshaws in Jaipur” happened successfully. The event was marked by the presence of authorities and representatives from various departments and organizations. Speakers from all the departments concerning the subject of the study participated in the event and gave voice to the event by making their stands on the various issues related to the Cycle Rickshaw Business aloud. The main speakers present during the study launch event were Mr Manish Pareekh (Deputy Mayor, Jaipur Municipal Corporation), Mr Om Prakash Sharma (Additional Superintendent, Traffic Police), Mr P. N. Bhandari (Advocate, Rajasthan High Court), Mr K. K. Sharma (Superintendent Engineer, Department of Local Bodies), Mr Pramod Gupta (Labour Inspector, Labour Department), Mr Ashok Jain (Labour Inspector, Labour department) and Mr R. C. Sharma (Additional Diractor, Jaipur Metro Rail Corporation). Representatives of other organisations such as Kuhad Trust and Pravah Jaipur Initiative expressed their support both before and during the event. The whole Community Video Unit (Pravah Jaipur Initiative) which helped us in making of the documentary on cycle rickshaws was present throughout the event. Representatives from Kuhad Trust which works on the micro financing of cycle rickshaws, were active speakers with their deep knowledge on the current status of the financial status of cycle rickshaw pullers in Jaipur. Other Organizations present during the event were ACCESS Development Services which works for and on micro financing and livelihood of marginalized workers, Jan Hit Manch, a social welfare group and Sphere India, a humanitarian agency. The subject of the discussion i.e. cycle rickshaw pullers also actively participated in the discussion.

The event started with a documentary film on the cycle rickshaws in Jaipur named “Ae Rickshaw Wale”. The Video projects the comment of all the stakeholders on various and specific points like advantage, disadvantage, problems, role of contractors, policies, social security schemes, registration and possible solutions to the problems of cycle rickshaw profession in Jaipur. Parties covered in the documentary are Rickshaw pullers, public, contractors and high authorities like Mr Rohit Mahajan (Superintendent of Police, Traffic), Mr Ashok Singh (Law Director, Jaipur Municipal Corporation) and officials from other departments (Labour Department and Department of Local Bodies) answerable for the cycle rickshaw profession.

Subsequently a brief presentation on the findings of the study on the cycle rickshaw in Jaipur was given by Researc Associate at Centre for Civil Society, Ms Aprajita Sharma. The presentation highlighted the basic findings of economic status, social status, income and expenditure mode, financial status, awareness of government schemes, problems, policies, legal history and suggestions for the improvement of the status of cycle rickshaws.

The event progressed further with the comments by all the speakers. The discussion was contributed by questions to government officials from media and other organization’s representatives present during the event. Moderation of the event was done by Mr Amit Chandra, National Coordinator of Jeevika Campaign. Media Coverage of the event was done by around 25 correspondents from various print and electronic media agencies.

Here is the minute of the event:

Minute

Here are some news cuttings of the event:

Rajasthan Patrika news4rajasthan.com Dainik Navjyoti Dainik Bhaskar Daily News

Link of the web news:

http://news4rajasthan.com/%E0%A4%9C%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%AA%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%B0-%E0%A4%AE%E0%A5%87%E0%A4%82-15000-%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B6%E0%A4%BE-%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%87-%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BE/

Here are few press cuttings of the event:

Bihar Government has finally agreed to create vending zones in 29 cities of the state after criticism by the High Court on failing to develop vending zones. We feel that our effort at almost levels of the agencies seems to be paying off.

The Urban Development Minister, Mr Prem Kumar announced on Monday, 2^nd July 2012 that the state government will create vending zones in order to provide market arrangements to the street vendors according to National Policy on Urban Street Vendors 2009. He was evaluating the work done by the department through DFID. He cited the example of Motihari where the construction of vending zone has already started and mentioned the plan to build vending zone in Rajbanshi Nagar, Patna where the demarcation has already been done.

The 29 Urban bodies  where the vending zones for street vendors would be created are Patna, Danapur, Khagaul, Phulwarsharief, Hajipur, Biharsharief, Chhapra, Ara, Begusarai, Siwan, Gaya, Bodh Gaya, Dehri on sone, Sasaram, Aurangabad, Nawada, Purnia, Saharsa, Kishanganj, Bhagalpur, Munger, Jamalpur, Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Bettiah, Motihari, Darbhanga and Rajgir.

Here are few news paper cuttings regarding the same:

Press Cutting on Vending Zones

Jaipur Municipal Corporation started a ten day long campaign to remove encroachment from walled city area of Jaipur from Monday, 30 April 2012. The campaign was started on basis of a report submitted by an Empowered Committee constituted by Supreme Court of India. This was 11^th such cleaning drive in walled city in last 12 years, ‘Operation Pink’ being the first one in year 2000. Here are some news clips and news links regarding the eviction drive:

News Cutting

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-04-30/jaipur/31505987_1_anti-encroachment-drive-temporary-encroachments-shopkeepers

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-05-02/jaipur/31539892_1_temporary-encroachments-badi-chaupar-jmc

Once again, poor street vendors were the first victim of the anti encroachment drive instead of removing permanent encroachment by land mafias even when the state government had passed ‘Rajasthan Urban Street Vendor (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 2011’ and notified on 1^st April 2012. The authorities tried to complete the formality of demolishing permanent encroachment by evicting poor street vendors who make their livelihood by selling fruits, vegetables and other stuffs of daily use on street.

We took up the issue very seriously and made our strategy to raise the issue of livelihood of poor street vendors and persuade JMC to find suitable solution to the issue so that the objective of beautifying the city can be attained without any loss of livelihood. In this regard CCS did several rounds of meetings with JMC officials, street vendor groups, community leaders and business group of the area to convince allowing systematic vending on street to add convenience for all. In this regard here are few major initiatives taken by CCS apart from several other things done:

1)       CCS held meetings with street vendors on May 03, 2012 to organize and unite them to face or counter the eviction activity and workout a practical solution.

2)       CCS participated in the meeting organized by JMC on the issue on May 03, 2012 to stand for the cause of livelihood of poor street vendors. The agenda of the meeting was to create consensus on eviction of street vendors from the walled city. We raised questions about taking vendors view point on eviction, legal parameters, and provisions of act on street vending.

3)       We conducted a detailed study of the eviction area with pictures and video of the area, organized stake holder meetings and several rounds of meetings with JMC officials. We convinced all the stake holders of one particular market to allow systematic street vending to avoid traffic congestion at the same time to add convenience in the market.

4)       On 17 May 2012, we gave a detailed presentation to the members of the Supreme Court Empowered Committee explaining rights of street vendors under the ‘Rajasthan Urban Street Vendor (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 2011’, ‘National Policy on Urban Street Vendors 2009’ and previous judgments of various courts in favor of street vendors. Justice V. S. Dave and Justice I. S. Israni liked the presentation and shared their ideas too regarding considering right to livelihood of poor street vendors as their fundamental right under the constitution. Here are some pictures during the presentation:

Supreme Court Empowered Committee Members in Discussion

Justice V. S. Dave in Discussion

Aprajita Sharma Giving Presentation

Justice V. S. Dave and I. S. Israni Watching Presentation

5)       Convinced with our representation the Supreme Court Empowered Committee sent a letter to JMC asking not to evict street vendors and develop inclusive plan for street vendors according to the ‘Rajasthan Urban Street Vendor (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 2011’ and share it with them. The committee also mentioned in the letter that the JMC can seek help of CCS in this matter. Here is copy of the letter:

Letter of Empowered Committees

6)       Taking cognizance of our meetings, raising the issue and getting the empowered committee notice, the JMC decided to allow street vendor to vend from the same place and not evict. Here is a news clip reading the same:

News Cutting

Jeevika campaign office of Centre for Civil Society in Jaipur hosted a group from Leaders’ Quest (http://www.leadersquest.org/) to understand its work on policy advocacy on Monday, April 23, 2012. Leaders’ Quest, a social enterprise committed to improving the quality and impact of leaders around the world delivers unique experiential programmes to integrate social purpose with performance at the core of their organisations.  LQ mentors high calibre leaders, from boardrooms to grassroots communities, who are changing the world around them.  This quest was tailor made for Bain & Company (http://www.bain.com/). 11 Business leaders of the company representing South East Asia, Australia, United States of America, France, Belgium, South Africa and South Korea participated in the visit.

The objective of the visit was to understand:

1. The informal economy, providing livelihoods and employment for millions.
2. Policy change and implementation – the story of getting legislation passed in Rajasthan and the challenges of getting new policies implemented.
3. Personal perspective on the informal economy from street vendors in Jaipur markets.

The visit lasted for more than three hours. The visit started with a brief presentation on Jeevika: Law, Liberty & Livelihood campaign work by Mr Amit Chandra, Jeevika National Coordinator wherein he explained in detail the idea behind the campaign as well as the initiatives of the campaign and how those initiatives helped the campaign reaching its goal. The presentation was followed by questions and answers from the LQ participants. We also had three street vendor representatives during the presentation for interaction with LQ participants.

After having brief understanding about the issues related with street vending and the campaign work, the LQ participants visited one street market to witness and understand the challenges. After the visit the participants once again had further interactions with campaign team to understand the connection between grassroot issues and larger economic growth.  The LQ participants were fascinated by the insights to the informal (moving to formal) economy, civil society and its relationship with government and motivation of the campaign team for the work and leadership style.

Here is brief profile of participants from Bain & Capital who participated visited the campaign work through Leaders’ Quest programme:

Profile of Participants

Here are some pictures of the visit:

Rajasthan assembly passed The Rajasthan Urban Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 2011 on 29 August 2011 (Find detailed information here: https://jeevika.org/rajasthan-assembly-passes-bill-for-urban-street-vendors/). The state act is based upon the model act drafted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India.

The state government was working on drafting rules and schemes to implement the policy after passing the bill.  Now the government has notified the act to be effective in the state from 1 April 2012. Hence, the act is now effective in the state which will recognize contribution of street vendors in economy and society. However, the state government has not issued guidelines for implementation of the act as yet. Here is the copy of notification letter of the act which was received though RTI application:

Notification Letter

The jury is happy to announce the winners of the essay competition. The jury didn’t find the quality of essays according to CCS standard and expectation. Hence, the jury decided not give the first prize. Here is the list of 1st runner prize (2nd award), 2nd runner prize (3rd award) and two consolation prizes: