By Prof. P.K. Misra
Street vendors in a growing modern Indian city is an interesting and challenging phenomenon as it throws up many significant questions for which we do not have informed explanations. There is hardly any systematic and reliable data on them. For the people whom they serve they are customary strangers. For urban planners and civic authorities, street vendors either do not exist or at best a source of nuisance and irritation and are generally unkind to them. Their approach towards them is spasmodic — evict or reallocate them in some remote corner and heave a sigh of relief till again shaken and then to repeat the cycle. Obviously this is no solution. However, it appears that the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) has taken some steps forward to regularise street vending in Mysuru city (Star of Mysore dated November 4, 2018) but there are many questions before any comments can be passed on it.
