Research paper on streed food vendor in Dhaka city

                                                            INTRODUCTION

Background the study

Street food vending is a prevailing and distinctive part of a large informal sector in Dhaka city, the capital of Bangladesh. The number of street vendors in Bangladesh is large. According to information from Dhaka city corporation, there are around 90,000 street vendors and here street vending is considered as an illegal trade and the street vendors face constant harassment from the authorities (street Hawker, 2010). The vendors have to pay a sizeable part of the income as bribes in order to keep playing their trade, so the problem areas for the street food vendors are business operations, business knowledge, extortion and product and production.  It is commonly viewed in public spaces particularly in the cities and distinctive in the sense that it provides a basic need to the urban inhabitants.

Dardano (2003) define street food as food prepared on the streets and ready to eat or prepared at home and consumed on the streets without further preparation. The food items are sold by vendors and hawkers especially in the streets and other similar public places. The items made available by the street vendors comprise of a diverse range of selection, starting from small snacks such as biscuits, tea, nuts and phucka/ chotpoti to wholesome meals such as ruti- bhaji and rice.

Each street food enterprise is generally small in size, requires relatively simple skills, basic facilities and small amounts of capital.

This paper is an attempt to gain an insight into the nature of the business and housing area of food vendors. The specific objective is to improve their living condition through improving their business condition.

Objective of the study:

The main objectives of the study are

1.    To identify the existing business procedure of the food vendors

2.    To explore the ways to improve the business condition

Methodology of the study:

Methodology outlines here the procedure applied for execution of the study. It expresses a systematic way through which any study can be done in a fruitful way. The methodology of the study is desired below.

Formulation of objective:

Formulation of objectives is most important for any study. Without objective it is very difficult to complete a study in a systematic and fruitful way. It also explains the scope of the study and shows the path that study should follow to achieve the goal.

Selection of the study area:

As the focus of the study is the food vendors DMC, Nilkhet have been selected as the study area because there are potential amount of food vendors along areas.

Literature review:

Literature review in conducting a study is considered as the most important phase of the study. Literature survey has been conducted to how the existing countries.  Information was collected from a number of books, thesis, reports, internet, journal etc.

Data collection:

Data was collected both from primary and secondary sources. Detail field survey has been done explore the existing condition of the food vendors. One case studies have been in this study and a questionnaire survey was carried out for the vendors.

Analysis and finding of the study:

After collecting necessary data, it was analyzed and findings from the case studies have been explored. Finally the existing business situation and housing condition of the vendors has been identified.

Recommendation and conclusion:

In this stage some design oriented proposals and recommendations with plan have been incorporated based on the major findings regarding housing condition of the food vendors of the study. Finally a conclusion has been drawn on the subject of the study.

Scope of the study:

Through this study the existing condition of business procedure of the food vendors can be identified. This will reveal lacking in existing regulation and implementation procedure regarding their business operation on street side.

Through field survey it will be possible to identify the supports and problems faced by the vendors.

This study also pin point the government organization or NGO intervention area to mitigate their problems and to improve their housing condition.

Limitation of the study:

Like many other studies it has many limitation.

1.    Study area: Study area is only DMC but street vendors are available in Bangladesh.

2.    Sample size: The sample size of the research is not large so that information may not be fully corrected.

3.    Gender issue: In this research only male street vendors are selected but there are many female street vendors.

4.    Financial support:  In this research no financial support.

Existing vendors policy in India:

In the national common minimum programme  of the first united progressive alliance government which was elected to govern india in 2004 it was stated that.

The UPA government is family committed to ensure the welfare and well-being all workers particularly those in the unorganized sector who constitute 93% of our workforce. Social security, health insurance, and other schemes for such workers like weavers, handlooms workers, fishermen and taddy tappers, leather workers etc will be expanded.

In 2009 the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation government of india published the national policy on urban street vendors along with the “ model street vendors”.

Feature of the national policy 2009

1.    It recognizes street vending as an integral and legitimate part of the urban retail trade and distribution system. While street vending is increasingly seen as a major menace in urban areas compounding the traffic problems. The national policy aims at giving street vendors a legal status and providing legitimate vending and hawkings zones in city and town master plans or development plans.

2.    Each street vendors will be registered under the supervision of a town vending committee headed by the respective municipal commissioner and given an identity card with a code number and category.

3.    The national policy also recommend the municipal authorities in the cities to provide for the street vendors a range of civic services such as provisions for solid waste disposal, public toilets and electricity , water and storage facility.

4.    Other important initiatives under 2009 policy include providing access to credit, skill, development , housing and capacity building for street vendors.

5.     According to national policy 2009 street vendors will be given vocational education and training  skills to upgrade their technical and business potential so to increase their income levels and opportunity costs.

Case studies:

There are 12 vendors on the west part of the Dhaka medical college. All of them male but in other places female vendors is a common scenario. Most of the vendors here sell rice or kischuri with egg different kind of vorta of shutki, egg , dall etc. Some vendors sell Biriani . Most of the vendors of this place line in Boxi Bazaar.

Case study 1:
Name : Md. Delwar Hossain and Md. Anwar Hossain

Anwar Hossain is 28 years old and he studied up to class 8. He is the son of delwar Hossain who is 62 years old.

Both of them are food vendors at the west DMC .  Some general feature of their business and housing condition are given below.

Family structure:

There are father , mother  and one brother and three sisters in his family. All of these family memebers are related directly or indirectly with their business. As Delwar Hossain bring ancillary products , his wife cook, his daughters help his wife in cooking and another son helps anwar in his business. So they have a strong family bonding and all the family members  help each other doing any kind of works.

Business condition:

Delwar Hossain is a businessman in DMC area from last 7 years. They were previously lived in Chittagong. In 1991 they lost everything due to deadly cyclone . Then Md. Delwar hossains come to Dhaka with his family. His initial investment was 1500tk and his father gave his money. So Anwar manage his initial investment without any outside intervention or any kind of interest rate. His fathers per income in 150-300 tk.

Type of food :

They sells rice or kichuri with egg, different kind of vorta , dall , different kind of vegetables. Per plate rice is 10 tk and with eggs per plate price is 15 tk . Delwar and Anwar bring the food in their business place using van and sell the foods.

Business place:

From the survey it has been revealed that this place is very favorable for business. As it is surrounded by DMC , BUET and many officers it generates huge customers for these vendors. Also eviction is less frequent here which is the prime concern for their business. They do not need to give money for their business to local powers.

Housing place:

At the beginning of this study there was a common conception that most of the food vendors live in slum areas. But this study reveals that most of the vendors live in Boxi Bazaar area for three years. Before this place live in palashi area. As Boxi Bazaar  is close to this business area it saves time and money. Their house is a three storied building and they lives in 1^st floor. There are two rooms in their house and rent is 6000 tk.

Opinion about holiday market:

Holiday market is mainly for the low income people. So vendors support the holiday market because price of the different products is low compare to other places.

Suggestion regarding improving their business:

1.    Provision of license

2.    Provision of legal space for vending

3.    Provision of services such as light, waste disposal and sanitation facility.

Recommendations for improving vendors housing condition:

1.    Implementing the national housing policy:

This is a priority for any sustainable improvements for Dhaka’s poor. A key element of this policy is in the enforcement of basic properly rights. Destruction of squatter settlements should be limited to necessary actions of redevelopment or infrastructure building and should be accompanied by relocation plans for evicted squatters.

2.    Strengthening Public institutions to implement the national housing policy:

Much stronger and more credible public institutions are needed for this enabling strategy to work. The multiplicity of public agencies intervening in housing programs in inefficient and could be reduced with each agency having clear roles and responsibilities, operating under the umbrella of the national policy.

3.    Improving legal and regulatory framework:

From existing material and discussion with experts there is clear scope for efficiency gains in the land and housing market due to constraints caused by existing laws and regulations applying to zoning , land subdivision and building.

Housing Finance:

Loan and land facilities from government should be available. If government takes initiative to acquire the land and if BFC provides loan to the company for the development, the problem can be solved.

Conclusion:

The problem of street hawking is not only a national issue but also an international one  .  Lack of gainful employment coupled with poverty in rural areas has pushed people out of their villages in search of a better existence in the cities. These migrants do not poses the skills or the education to enable them to find better paid secured employment in format sectors and so they have to settle their work in the informal sectors.

Low skill rural migrants , exist in all countries of asia such as India, Nepal, Combodia etc

Again some workers who were earlier in the formal sectors lost their jobs because of closures, downsizing or merger in the industries and had to seek law paid work in the informal sectors in order to survive.

Increasing number of food vendors is a concern for govt. but it has tremendous potential for generating income and employment for the rapidly rising population on the hand. And at the other hand this business serves those section of our society who has no access to the modern well-furnished  restaurants, hotels etc due to their low income , low living standard etc. The mobile food service system is part of a system of a survival  strategy attempt to maintain and expand the bare subsistence proceeds of poor urban households in a situation of economic crisis.  Therefore policy makers should pay specific attention to build local capacity in order to support and improve opportunities for job creation that will uplift the economic well- being of poverty stricken families and there by contribution to improve housing condition of street food vendors.

References:

1.    Street Hawkers (2010) , “ International status of street Hawkers”.

2.     National policy on urban street vendors in India