Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: It’s been more than a year because Satish Kumar switched from promoting street meals about industrial hubs of Udyog Vihar and Cyber City in Gurugram to vegetables in nearby residential regions. He also operated two kiosks promoting cigarettes and tea in the region but each day sales had crashed to significantly less than Rs 300. “My brother has been helping me run the two stalls. Along with food items, I was able to earn up to Rs 1,000 until Covid struck and offices got shut. I earned maximum during lunch hours but since last year, there has been a negligible return of office goers,” Kumar told TheSpuzz Online as he recalled how his each day hand-to-mouth life was hammered due to the Covid-induced work from home (WFH) set-up.
As India Inc shifted to remote work or WFH atmosphere last year, street vendors promoting goods about industrial areas which includes company and monetary districts, workplace complexes, and so on., struggled with their livelihood. Covid-connected restrictions in movement and retailing goods specifically for street vendors had disrupted their each day earning capabilities and pushed them to switch to other menial tasks such as washerman, working at gas stations, delivering on the internet meals orders, and so on, or they merely had to relocate their kiosk or cart to residential colonies.
“Lockdown didn’t allow anyone (street vendors) to do business on streets and WFH situation uprooted them completely from their places that were their major source of earning. While there were many who started selling fruits and vegetables in residential areas, but they couldn’t sell much due to on-ground restrictions by local authorities. There won’t be many vendors without any loan taken either from friends and family or other informal credit sources after spending their savings. Absence of office crowd since last year have bereft them of a major chunk of their earnings,” Arbind Singh, National Coordinator, National Association of Street Vendors of India told TheSpuzz Online.
The each day sale, for instance, in Delhi was decreased to about 30 per cent. “If someone was earning Rs 500 selling sandwiches or paranthas a day before Covid, the income was reduced to not more than Rs 150-200 while situation now is gradually improving. The majority of street vendors, who had returned to their home town last year, have come back while only 20 per cent are still in their native towns. If there is a third wave and WFH continued, the impact would be devastating,” added Singh.
Likewise, the scenario in Mumbai was grim. Of about 1.2 lakh hawkers or street vendors in the city, 15,000 have been represented by Azad Hawkers’ Union. According to the union, post Covid, street vendors surrounding the workplace spaces in the city have been fully out of company. “Businesses were completely shut. Also, there has been extortion from such vendors on a big scale here. How would they (vendors) survive? Except for vegetables, vendors were not allowed to sell anything,” Dayashankar Singh, President, Azad Hawkers’ Union told TheSpuzz Online.
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Debdulal Saha, who is at the moment the assistant professor of humanities and social sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, noted that the recovery for street vendors is substantially slow as the majority of offices continue to operate in a remote work atmosphere. “WFH impact was big as vendors lost their natural markets to sell goods. Also, recovery would be very slow. Most vendors were either selling juice or food items. Even if work-from-office resumes, vendors are aware that people might not be fully confident in eating from them as they were before Covid,” Saha told TheSpuzz Online.
Importantly, the government had last June launched the PM SVANidhi scheme to offer you working capital loan of up to Rs 10,000 for 12 months below the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative to Covid-hit street vendors which includes hawkers promoting fruits, vegetables, tea, footwear, neighborhood snacks, books, and so on. Partner lending institutions had disbursed 24.61 lakh loan applications involving Rs 2,439 crore, as of September 6, 2021, from 27.14 lakh applications worth Rs 2,712 crore sanctioned, according to the information from the scheme’s portal by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. However, Saha stated the credit limit of up to Rs 10,000 ought to be enhanced.
“Pan and cigarette shops will recover faster than food outlets. They will have to wait for a longer time until employees return to offices. For more support to street vendors in their recovery, the government should increase the credit limit under PM SVANidhi from Rs 10,000 to at least Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000,” added Saha. In order to enhance digital payments amongst street vendors, the Reserve Bank of India had last month had extended the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) Scheme to vendors covered below the PM SVANidhi scheme in Tier-I and Tier-II centres. The fund was announced by RBI back in January this year to encourage the deployment of Point of Sale (POS) infrastructure in Tier-3 to Tier-6 centres and northeastern states. PIDF has aimed to generate 30 lakh new touchpoints each and every year for digital payments and would be operational for 3 years in the starting.
Despite Covid-connected issues ebbing with enhanced vaccination count and decreased quantity of Covid situations, a quantity of firms are searching to continue with remote work till next year even as it also depends on the possibility of the third wave. For instance, Google had extended WFH for its worldwide areas till January 2022. Moreover, a worldwide survey out in July this year by software program firm Zoho stated that about 95 per cent of Indian firms are arranging to continue with the remote working for the coming two years. Of the 1,210 IT executives and technologies pros surveyed from North America, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and India, 202 respondents from firms with more than 500 staff have been from India.