In India, there are around 5-6 million street vendors, with the highest concentrations in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad. The estimated employment generation in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata altogether accounts for nearly 0.6 million [1]. In these cities, the unorganized sectors include the street food business, which is worth more than INR 545Â Million USD. [1] Moreover, nearly 1.2 million households rely on this sector as their primary source of income.
It is rightly said that nothing represents the rich tapestry of India’s multicultural fabric better than its street food variety. It is so because the cuisine of a place develops over centuries in sync with the climate, lifestyle, and habits of the people living there and holistically represents the culture. The combination of flavors, textures, and herbs used in cuisine creates an array of tastes that are truly unique to each culture. These cuisines signify not just culture but also seek to connect people sharing common traditions. This very insight that cuisines reflect a culture in many ways was apparent during the 12th National Street Food Festival held in January 2023 in New Delhi. The mini-India assimilating different regional cultures was clearly noticeable on the sunny afternoon of mid-January. The expanding list of participating vendors and increased footfall were also indicative of the enhanced domain of street food vending across the country.
The activity of food street vending has seen an increasing trend around the world with enhanced urbanization. The convenience and its low cost make street food the most favored choice of urban poor and people visiting the place. Street food vendors are not only valuable to the economy it also supports the livelihoods of millions engaged in the profession. Even in fairly developed countries, the concept of traditional street food unique to the place is emerging as a new tourist attraction with the emergence of food streets offering exotic local foods. Despite the growth in their numbers, street food vendors face harassment by authorities as their legal status is not established. The lack of legal status is also the main hurdle in providing them with any support or relief. Low levels of education and skills, and limited access to formal credit constrain street vendors’ ability to access emerging market opportunities. On account of being unorganized and self-employed, street vendors and their families often lack any linkage to social security, welfare, and assistance schemes and initiatives of the Government. This makes street vendors and their families vulnerable in difficult times or when they may require assistance for unforeseen expenses. Article 39 (a) of the Indian Constitution directs the State to frame policies for securing the Right to adequate means of livelihood for every citizen, thus, their evictions violate their rights guaranteed under the Constitution. Accordingly, with the objective to provide them legal status in recognition of the significant contributions made by street vendors to urban society, the government enacted the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014. This Act gave a ray of hope to the street vendors but many States and UTs never adopted the Act. Apart from the lack of legal status, and the absence of reliable data, it has been tough to implement schemes and make financial provisions for street vendors’ improvement.
To overcome their weakness arising from poor education, awareness, and any formal training, it is also considered imperative to provide training to street food vendors on the basic principles of sanitation, hygiene, quality, and safety. Thus, to formalize this unorganized sector, an initiative namely Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) as a component of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) was launched. The objective of this program is to provide relevant skills to Street Food Vendors, leading towards better services to consumers, more opportunities for vendors for revenue generation, and awareness of regulations and stipulated rules. The project is being implemented by the Tourism and Hospitality Sector Skill Council (THSSC) and the Street Food Vendors are being educated on health and safety standards, effective communication techniques with staff and customers, new-age skills such as digital literacy, financial literacy, digital payments, and e-selling.
The National Street Food Festival 2023 was special as Modern energy cooking services (MECS) entered into a partnership with NASVI and supported the 12th Street Food Festival by linking selected street food vendors at the National Street Food Festival to electric-based cooking and spreading awareness about the same to thousands of visitors and street vendors. NASVI introduced electric (induction) cooking devices in 20 stalls out of the total 120 food stalls. Food stalls were selected on the basis of the interest of vendors and the feasibility of cooking dishes that involves boiling, steaming, and in some cases, frying. The success of cooking with electricity was very much evident in the smiling face of the vendors using Induction stoves who willingly admitted they would recommend it to other vendors. Surprisingly, these selected vendors were aware of the low cost and ease of cooking with electricity compared to LPG. The project has immense potential in terms of energy saving and reducing air pollution in cities. While we celebrate street food and the introduction of electric cooking in the festival, the fact that switching over to electric cooking by street food vendors is a small task as Kolkata itself has 30,000 food vendors, who use coal-fired ovens and contributes 30% of the PM 2.5 pollution in the city according to a Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) and National Environmental Engineering Research Institute(NEERI) report. It may be too early to say that the days of cooking on gas are over, but certainly, the message is loud and clear- we need to think about the electrification and decarburization of the residential, commercial, and street kitchens. We need to embrace the technology which has provided many solutions to challenges in the daily life of humans.
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