Street Vendors in India Urban Space – Livelihood and Government Initiatives

India has 35 percent of its 1.4 billion populations residing in urban area (World Bank, 2021). Informal employment is dominating in the urban area with 80 percent of the workers under informal arrangement. 50 percent of the country’s GDP comes from informal sector. Street vendors comprise 4.2 percent of total employment in the urban economy (Raveendran & Joann, 2020). As per the Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, 10 million vendors in India contribute to 50 percent of country’s savings, and 63 percent of the country’s GDP comes from vendors. Article 19 (1) (g) of Indian constitution gives its citizen a fundamental right to practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business. It means vending occupation cannot be denied by the local authorities and the state. The government policies focused on legalization of trade, planning hawking zones and skill improvement of vendors.