New Delhi - Street Vendors

mmike56

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6340391.stm

Peace ~ Mm56

kullukid

Goodbye India! Hello Tesco! Looks like the end is nigh for Delhi! KK

Annett

speechless

almond

they are just going to relocate those vendors in particular streets and put them under some supervision by an NGO who will then nominate health inspectors for better hygiene etc.

Trust the BBC to add something 'extra' when it comes to India.

John Rambow

I don't see how having the food be "pre-packed" (when? this morning? last night?) will make anything safer. And with so many other laws on the books and not being enforced, it seems silly to add this one.



With any luck, this idea won't go anywhere.

Annett

True, reminds me somehow on the article EU proposal for Swastika ban - BBC

almond

It's not about "pre-packing", instead clustering these vendors together on a single street and ensuring quality of ingredients that go into the prepared stuff and ensuring quality of output. And then manage proper disposal of the waste-generated instead of being left around for some dogs etc to scavenge.

Health inspectors appointed by NGO, will then inspect the quality of food prepared and ensure that the microbial content etc is within safety limits. (this take care of the 'delhi belly' so many people complain about).

And this is going to go places...because I believe this is being planned with view to the 2010 Commonwealth Games wherein we do not want a large number of people catching a "delhi belly". So, this idea definitely is going to be implemented.

There is going to be no-interference from the Govt, but some NGO which likes to keep yak-yakking about safety, hygiene, streetfood, dharma, karma, world peace, poverty eradication, nuclear disarmament is going to be put in charge (hehe j/k)...try to walk the talk for a change.

akt

I sympathize with small vendors but not with successful ones who are still on the sidewalk after decades of roaring business. This is one thing that holds India back. As if Apple Computer was still operating out of a garage.

However, I suspect nobody is going anywhere. Probably one layer of bureaucracy is about to be added with its inspectors, bribes, & attendant price rise. With some luck we may get better sanitation too, or we may not.

almond

ohh I forgot to add, Govt has no role in this...it's just going to appoint a qualified NGO. Rest is all their headache.

So no additional bureaucracy.

Nick-H

Apple is still operating out of a garage, isn't it?
You don't sympathise with success? how strange!

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capt_mahajan

300000 street hawkers. That means that probably a couple of million customers daily. Many daily wage earners, people living without cooking facilities and office workers out for a cheap meal.

And, from the BBC article, "The authorities are concerned that most street food is cooked and served in unsafe and filthy conditions and want it cooked at home and sold pre-packed."

Home? Who's home?

Alternatives? Food courts (Delhi is 3 times the size of Singapore with almost thrice its population) and designated streets will be inadequate.

There may be a case for making more hygienic facilities available first and then encouraging relocation. But killing 300000 people's livelihoods at one fell swoop because you want to gear up your city for the Commonwealth games three years later shows a remarkable lack of common sense, in my view.

Delhi belly? Never had it.

cyberhippie

In order for new ideas like Mcdonanld, Walmart etc etc to work, you have to have the same restrictive licensing practises as the west. Could this be a step in that direction???

If so it brings into focus what the words entreprenuership and competition really mean!!

PeakXV

If street toilets, street refuse, and aggressive pariah dog behaviour are a product of a sprawling outdoor urban restaurant .... then maybe it will/should/could be redesigned a bit as India starts a serious attempt at hygienizing 101.

It would make for an interesting poll as to the demographic of traveller's and natives who actually indulge in it!?

Is it more a budget travel/ middle class habit ..... or a business travel/upper class habit?

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We shall not cease from exploration and at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started ...and know the place for the first time.
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Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

tribeandnation

Perhaps, just perhaps, the focus of the Supreme Court ought to be on providing their people with sanitary living conditions and providing food that they don't share with the dogs before making sure that whitey gets sanitary chipatis from a guy who's just trying to make it in life. Instead they'll just take away more people's livelyhood.
The picture in the article of the tourist eating saying "It's part of the experience for me" wraps up perfectly the west's attitude towards the 3rd world. Shut up about your "experience", we need to start looking at it from the right perspective and stop patronizing the people of India

tnog

I have to say this city is changing...


Whatever the arguments can be, (and I doubt that it's going to eradicate street vendors immediately, only add more avenues for the police to collect bribes), it makes me fearful.


I really appreciate the informal sector. The need to regulate the body is part and parcel to our times and only accelerating.

Control how and where we eat, shit, smoke, go...


I'd take my risks with a case of the runs, rather than a case with the State any day.

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~Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities