Hawkers find holiday market inadequate to live by

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It is a rat race. Only those who are able to start at midnight for the next morning’s holiday market can manage a nook in the street. The rest of the vendors have to go back home empty-handed.
About three lakh hawkers in the capital city are passing uncertain days as many of them earn not a single penny a day, failing to secure a place in the holiday market set up by the government in about 12 places of the city. The market sits in one place only on one specific day a week.
The competition for space is everywhere but is most intense at Gulistan holiday market, which sits on Fridays. Other notable venues of the rotating market are Manik Miah Avenue, Panthapath, Segun Bagicha, in front of Eastern Plaza at Hatirpool, and in front of Gausia Market.
Since their eviction from the city footpaths in January, a large number of hawkers have remained almost jobless. Only a small section of them is able to manage places at the holiday market and eke out a living from the sales.
Monir Hossian, a 20-year-old shoe vendor, said, ‘We start at midnight to secure a place in the holiday market and wait till the traffic police signal us to take place in the street.’ But only a few hundred, mainly the young ones, of the thousands of vendors who gather at the place are able to win the race for the vending spaces, he added.
Monir said initially they used to write their names or make marks on the street to book their places. But the system failed when the holiday market began to pick up and more hawkers started to throng the venues.
‘Sometimes we fall prey to muggers on our way to the market in the small hours and we lose everything,’ said another vendor, Obaid Mia.
Their sufferings, however, do not end with getting a place in the market, Obaid said, adding that after passing a sleepless night they are forced to pass the day without any place to eat or any toilet facility.
‘In the current rainy season, most of the time, we have to sit idle, wrapping our merchandises with polythene sheets. Sometimes, we cannot even sit in the street due to water-logging,’ he said.
Many a hawker said the idea of running holiday market without making any permanent rehabilitation of the street vendors was too inadequate to address the massive problem.
According to a rough estimate, only 15,000 hawkers can sit in a holiday market while the rest remain jobless, said M Waliullah Patwari, founding president of the Bangladesh Combined Footpath Hawkers’ Council.
He said, ‘We do not want holiday markets. This is but a spoon of food to feed a hungry mass.’
The government should set up hawkers’ markets with all necessary facilities, where every hawker will possess a place by signing an agreement to pay for the possession over five to 10 years, suggested Waliullah.
He said they also urged the government to permit them to sit in the footpaths in the meantime, leaving a wide-enough space for pedestrians to walk. ‘We have submitted a number of memoranda to advisers to the government. But they are yet to undertake any initiative to ensure our livelihood.’
There are a number of hawkers’ markets in the city, including those at Bangabazar, Gulistan, Bangabandhu Avenue, Dhanmondi, Nilkhet, Jatrabari, and Jurain. But the street hawkers cannot afford to rent shops at any of them.
‘It is simply impossible for any of us to pay Tk 2 to 3 lakh to get possession of a shop in the hawkers’ markets,’ Waliullah pointed out.
Besides, with the increase in production of low-cost products, the number of street vendors in the city had also been on the rise and they had been meeting the demand of the low-income people for such by vending those in the streets.

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