In August 2020, Mohammad Shagir, a flute seller who you hear long before you see, returned to the streets of Mumbai. Four months after the ...
In August 2020, Mohammad Shagir, a flute seller who you hear long before you see, returned to the streets of Mumbai. Four months after the Indian government abruptly announced a harsh lockdown to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, vendors offering speciality products like flutes, staples like fish, and services like knife-sharpening began to frequent familiar beats in an attempt to resume their livelihoods.
But newfound concerns about hygiene and the lack of monetary support, information and guidelines left many of these members of the informal economy in a precarious position. Now, they are dealing with the uncertainty of a brutal second wave of the virus.
Who are these street vendors?
Estimates suggest that there are between six million and ten million street vendors in India. They form approximately 14% of India’s urban informal economy as only a few vendors have licences to pursue their work. Impractical licence caps render much of this work to be considered illegal. In Mumbai, only about 15,000 of the city’s approximately 250,000 street vendors have licences.
Metropolitan regions such as Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata have the largest concentration of street retailers. Most individuals in these trades are migrants from the country’s poorer states, where non-agricultural activities are limited. The official definition of a street...
