Income, Vulnerability and Empowerment of Women Street Vendors in Haflong Town of Assam

Abstract

Street vending constitutes an important segment of urban labour market for a temporary source of subsistence self employment in India since time immemorial. The benefit of street vending is that, employment can be created without adequate government intervention except some regulatory mechanism like municipal board or parking fee etc. But, the income generated from such employment cannot be sustainable in most of the hilly areas of North Eastern States (NES) as it can provide only a bare minimum amount of income especially in the lower circuit of urban informal sector. In addition, women in such employment are really vulnerable when they are mostly engaged in vegetable vending like occupations in small hill towns. The present study seeks to understand the income and employment pattern of women engaged in vegetable vending in Haflong town of Assam. Haflong town is located in erstwhile North Cachar Hills (presently Dima Hasao district) of Assam. The survey has been conducted with pre tested schedule among thirty women vegetable vendors in the town to understand the income, vulnerability and empowerment pattern of the sample respondents. It is found that vulnerability and livelihood situation of the sample women vegetable sellers are not in a decent condition. By using basic statistical tools, from the discussion, it can be deduced that there is urgent need for facilitating access to suitable and adequate space, institutional credit, social security and skills to the urban vegetable women vendors.