A Cartload Of Worries For Street Vendors, Despite Schemes

Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself takes pride in his ‘chaiwala’ (tea-seller) antecedents in Gujarat. He made another street food, ‘jhalmuri’, a buzzword in April this year, by stopping to eat the popular puffed rice snack at a roadside stall in West Bengal.

Behind the occasional burst of celebrity and the mundane, however, what is often lost is the cartload of livelihood uncertainty that overshadows the lives of street vendors. 

A slew of government initiatives has been rolled out for them in the last 12 years. 

In 2014, the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act was brought in. The PM SVANidhi (Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar) scheme in 2020 made them eligible for collateral-free loans. In yet another step two years ago, the credit amount under it was increased.

But conversations with street vendors, experts, and an examination of official documents by The Secretariat reveal insufficient impact on the ground due to weak implementation, lack of awareness, and small loan amounts. 

"We are formal on paper for the schemes, but completely illegal on the street for the local authorities," said a vendor who sells clothes on a footpath in west Delhi. He has been putting up his makeshift stall at a Saturday market every week for the last six years.

His experience reflects a broader disconnect between regulatory inclusion and the everyday realities of hawking in India.

An Act To Regulate Hawking

Street vendors make up one of the largest informal workforces in India. More than 1 crore people work as street vendors across India, with nearly 20 lakh of them running street food businesses. Their number in Delhi alone is estimated to be 3 lakh. 

The Centre enacted the Street Vendors Act, 2014, to ensure the right to earn a livelihood while ensuring the regulation of public places. It tried not just to address the problem of street vending as an encroachment problem but to establish a formal framework for hawkers to operate and be legally protected.

It empowered the government to issue Certificates of Vending (CoVs) and create Town Vending Committees (TVCs) to represent street vendors and other stakeholders. This was meant to facilitate the allotment of dedicated vending zones. 

The Act was also meant to protect them from arbitrary eviction and mandated periodic surveys to determine who was an eligible street vendor.

But more than a decade after it came into force, the implementation of the Act remains incomplete. Several statutory provisions under the Act are yet to be fully operational. 

So far, over 70,000 hawkers in Delhi have been issued certificates.

Why Implementation Matters 

Most wonder whether they can continue to earn a living without the threat of being removed. Vendors spoke about frequent clearance drives and the uncertainty of running a business without a guaranteed place to sell.

“The Street Vendors Act has not been fully implemented in Delhi,” said Sunil Mishra, who is standing for Town Vending Committee elections from Karol Bagh. The elections are due on 2nd August.

Over 20,000 street vendors are yet to be surveyed, as per a report submitted by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to the Delhi High Court in May 2026. The court has ordered the civic body to finalise the setting up of 23 TVCs, which play a key role in assessing vendors, suggesting vending areas, and monitoring implementation of the Act.

Last year, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs sent a representation to the MCD on behalf of the National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) to review allegations of forced eviction and harassment of vendors, and to issue an Action Taken Report under the provisions of the Street Vendors Act.

Even when legally recognised as a vending business, many vendors say their operations are vulnerable to uncertainty because they lack clearly-defined vending areas and effective local institutions.

For hawkers, the issue is not just about starting a business, but about being able to run it without worrying about relocation. "One of the biggest issues is the lack of properly designated vending zones. We want dedicated zones where vendors can operate with certainty," he said. 

SVANidhi: What Works, What Doesn’t 

While the Street Vendors Act lays down the legal framework for street vending, PM SVANidhi has focused on improving access to formal credit. 

Rajesh Singh, former Advocacy Manager at the National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI), told The Secretariat, "The biggest benefit of PM SVANidhi is not just the loan, it is the recognition that the beneficiary is a street vendor." 

But this recognition must be in addition to the safeguards provided under the Street Vendors Act.

Since 2020, the scheme has disbursed over 1.12 crore loans for a total value of over ₹17,800 crore without the requirement to put up any collateral since its launch in 2020. It has reached over 75.5 lakh street vendors in the country. More than 2.94 lakh applications have been processed in Delhi alone. 

When it was launched, the scheme allowed ₹10,000 and ₹20,000 as the respective first and second tranches of the loan. In 2025, these figures were increased to ₹15,000 and ₹25,000.

While originally the scheme was valid up to 31 March, 2022, it was extended to Dec 31, 2024. The validity of the scheme has now been further extended till 2030.

For vendors who have availed the scheme, the financial relief is tangible. "The biggest benefit of PM SVANidhi is that vendors don't have to borrow from moneylenders at high interest. Government credit and interest subsidy reduce that burden," said Mishra.

Awareness Is Weak

Most of the 20 hawkers that The Secretariat spoke with in Delhi could not recall the name of the SVANidhi scheme. The few who knew about the initiative referred to it as the “₹10,000 loan” that came at the time of the pandemic.

Those who availed of the scheme admitted that it helped them to buy fresh stock, repay small debts, and alleviate short-term cash needs. No one criticised the scheme entirely.

They, however, said it did not provide them with extensive help. “A loan of ₹10,000-₹15,000 is not big enough to change our fortunes. It is just enough to stock up for a single time,” a mango seller said.

The Need Of The Hour

The problem for thousands of street vendors in Delhi is no longer access to formal credit. It's whether they can continue to make a living with legal certainty. 

Arbind Singh, National Coordinator at NASVI, compared SVANidhi and the Street Vendors Act to say, "One is about the need for credit, and the other about the right to livelihood. These are two different things."

PM SVANidhi has proved that formal credit can be expanded to street vendors and can be scaled up. However, the Delhi experience shows that financial inclusion is not enough to guarantee livelihoods. 

A report by SBI Research says, “While optimal credit remains a critical vector towards bringing transformative changes in smoothening the operational cycle of micro entrepreneurs, investing in capacity building through skills in digital and market know-hows by urban local bodies” is needed too. 

Therein lies scope for the next big policy intervention by the government.

Effective implementation of the Street Vendors Act will rely on the proper functioning of TVCs, vending zones, and the formal recognition of the street vendors - not just on paper.