Uncovering the Myth of Street Vendors: A Case Study of Navi Mumbai

The general impression about street vendors is that they are a “nuisance” or an “eyesore” that ruins the image of city and prevents development of city, as elsewhere in India and other developing countries. Navi Mumbai is one of the world's largest planned cities. The structure plan model of the city is favoured with broad land use zones indicating the uses permitted within each zone, as against the conventional master plan. Though small vendors are considered in commercial zone (such as vegetable/fish market, daily bazaar, otla etc) in all the 14 planned nodes of the city, but despite this the fact shows that there exist huge gap between demand and supply of space for hawkers at affordable cost and for thousands of street vendors in the city, there is no specific zone for hawkers in development plan. The street vending has had a long historical presence in urban cities in India; it provides essential services to a major segment of the population and provides direct self-employment to urban poor. This paper reveals the necessary requirement of street vendors in a city through meticulous understanding of their role at public spaces and socio demographic and economic profile of street vendors. This paper comprehensively covers the socio-demographic, economic and spatial parameters of matters for the Navi Mumbai city which is based on complete study of seven planned nodes and non-nodal areas located in Raigadh District in Navi Mumbai. An attempt has also been made to compare the situation of street vendors of Navi Mumbai with other Indian Cities in Gujarat, Karnataka and Delhi etc. The paper further provides recommendations for street vendor's settlement and the street vending policy of City and Industrial Development Corporation is in line with National Policy on Urban street Vending.