At last, street vendors, including rehri and farriwalas, have something to cheer about as the Municipal Corporation (MC) here is all set to construct first of the 64 proposed street vending zones on Hambran Road at the vacant site in front of the Sub-Registrar’s office.
Delhi’s 2041 master plan is an opportunity to make the city more inclusive for informal workers
With workers facing an economic freefall, it is vital the plan reimagines the city with their voices at the forefront. The pandemic has revealed the depths of workers’ exclusion in Delhi. | Jewel Samad / AFP
A walk through the streets of Delhi reveals a diverse, bustling workforce – the vendor that sells fresh flowers outside the temple, the tailor under the tree who darns and repairs old clothes, the woman who makes homemade spices and pickles in the shanty town nearby.
These informal workers feed the economic engine of the city and yet their contributions largely go unrecognised. They remain missing from the imagination of the city, and the absence of their voice in planning and policy has left them constantly excluded and penalised. Now, at the dawn of a new Delhi master plan, in the midst of a global pandemic, workers must have a chance to claim their st