"COVID-19 took the world by shock. What started as a small infection has spread across several countries, inflicting harm to millions of people and setting the global economy back by decades. As of September 2020, India adds close to 100,000 COVID-19 cases per day. Economists estimate the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth to contract by at least 10.5% for 2021 (C. Kumar 2020). Q1 GDP numbers show a GDP fall of close to 24% (Jebraj 2020). Unemployment in the country in the third week of September has risen to 7.2% (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy 2020).

The government and society in India have historically viewed farming merely as a means of achieving food security for the country. Farmers are considered annadatas, instead of legitimate entrepreneurs engaged in the business of agriculture. The liberalisation of 1991 did not touch the agriculture sector.

Government and society in India have historically viewed farming merely as a means of achieving food security for the country. Farmers are considered annadatas, instead of legitimate entrepreneurs engaged in the business of agriculture. The liberalisation of 1991 did not touch the agriculture sector. Despite decades of policy interventions, a majority of Indian farmers have not seen their incomes rise, nor have they been able to increase farm productivity.

Street vendors form an integral part of the urban economy—majority of the population depends on hawkers for affordable goods and services. Vending constitutes a sizeable proportion of the informal sector and creates opportunities for entrepreneurship and self-employment. For several decades post-independence vendors faced harassment, extortion and eviction at the hands of local authorities and found no respite from courts either.

The Indian Parliament enacted the Street Vendor (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act in 2014, to prevent harassment of street vendors and to regulate their livelihood. Given the important role played by local authorities in regulating street vending, the Act delegates rule-making powers to the State Government. It specifies the respective authorities for making rules, schemes and bye-laws, neatly delineates the rule-making heads/matters for each of these and specifies the timeline for enacting them.

सेंटर फॉर सिविल सोसायटी द्वारा प्रस्तुत आज़ादी पॉडकास्ट के इस एपिसोड में फाउंडेशन फॉर इकोनॉमिक डेवलपमेंट के सीनियर प्रोग्राम मैनेजर देवाशीष देशपांडे के साथ ‘कृषि सब्सिडी की तार्किकता’ की पड़ताल कर रहे हैं सेंटर फॉर सिविल सोसायटी के रिसर्च मैनेजर व होस्ट सुधांशु नीमा। इस पॉडकास्ट में किसानों को सब्सिडी वस्तुओं के रूप में प्रदान करने की बजाए डायरेक्ट कैश ट्रांसफर के माध्यम से प्रदान किए जाने की संभावनाओं और इसकी जटिलताओं पर विस्तार से चर्चा की गई है।

कृषि कर्ज माफी का जो आंकड़ा है वह उद्योग जगत के कुल एनपीए के बराबर पहुंच गया है। यानि कि पिछले दस वर्षों में केंद्र व राज्य स्तर पर किसानों की कर्ज माफी के रूप में कुल 4.7 लाख करोड़ रूपए माफ किए गए हैं। हालांकि इतना सब होने के बावजूद किसानों की समस्या एक लाइलाज रोग की तरह अब भी मौजूद है। आए दिन किसान धरना दे रहे हैं या मौत को गले लगाने को मजबूर हो रहे हैं। आखिर क्या है किसानों की समस्याओं का इलाज! 

आजादी पॉडकास्ट के इस एपिसोड में होस्ट अविनाश चंद्रा, संपादक, azadi.me और हरवीर सिंह, संपादक, आउटलुक पत्रिका, बातचीत करते हैं कृषि में संकट और उसके समाधान के बारे में।

The Street Vendors Act 2014 mandates the formation of town vending committees (TVC) to survey all local street vendors at least once every five years. Until a survey is complete, no street vendor is to be evicted. In this attached study, we document how street vendors were enumerated in Gurugram, Haryana.

Multiple surveys, varying methods

Street vending is typically self-regulated by informal but codified norms of space allocation. Vendors, in most cases, allocate/occupy spots based on the rule of first possession. Kettles (2006) argues self-regulation brings efficiency and reduces conflicts through the identification of “valuable” revenue-generating vending sites. For the administration, such self-regulation reduces the burden to identify and allocate vending spots. More importantly, formalising existing informal practices increases compliance, reducing the need for enforcement.

The report argues that street vendors who are expressly recognised and protected by the Street Vendors Act 2014 continue to be stigmatized as “encroachers” and face the usual official and unofficial consequences including extortion, harassment and evictions. The State apparatus has not fully implemented the law in most states. Moreover, by evicting the vendors and creating no vending zones before enumeration, state authorities, as well as local administrations, have been in clear conflict with the law. Unfortunately, the courts have mostly sided with the government and upheld evictions.