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The Book

Excerpts from the Introduction

1. "Article 3(1) of the Cycle Rickshaw Bye-Laws of 1960 under Section 481 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act of 1957 requires that the owner and the driver of the cycle rickshaw must be the same person. The intention behind this rule is ostensibly noble—to reduce exploitation of rickshaw pullers by the middlemen, the contractors or thekedaars. However, the actual effect of the rule is rather perverse. The law basically says one person can own only one cycle rickshaw: there is no room for growth for individual owners in the cycle-rickshaw business. The only business that the poor rickshaw puller knows well cannot be expanded. He is condemned forever to live at the subsistence level on the revenue from one cycle rickshaw. As a business, you can own multiple taxies or buses but not so for cycle rickshaws of the poor. Is this the way to help the poor emerge from poverty?  

Moreover, if the owner is unable to ply the rickshaw, falls sick or goes to his native place for a visit, no one in his family can ply it. His rickshaw must lie unutilised.  Does the law requiring the owner and the driver to be the same person really help the poor? … 

Because of all these problems and uncertainties created by the licensing system, the pullers prefer to rent than own the rickshaw. More than 90 per cent of rickshaws in Delhi are rented and not owned! The law was supposed to outlaw the middleman, but it is only the middleman who thrives in the rickshaw market. The actual outcome is contrary to what was intended by the law. This mismatch between intentions and outcomes is so common for regulations controlling normal economic activities that it has been given the status of a law: the law of unintended consequences..."(Page 23-24)

2. "The Municipal Corporation of Delhi runs a monopoly slaughterhouse with a ban on private entry in that business.  The capacity of the municipal slaughterhouse is limited to about 2000 goats & sheep and 500 buffaloes a day.  The quantity of meat demanded is far higher than the capacity of the slaughterhouse.  Since private killing of animals is illegal, the goat and cattle owners have to go to the municipal house if they want to sell the meat legally. [1]  The smaller capacity of the slaughterhouse meant that the owners had to stand in queue for long hours to be ahead in line.  The long queue led to the practice of slaughterhouse workers taking animals through a back door for a fee..."(Page 27)

3. "Proposed Regulatory Solutions

Myriad approaches have been tried to solve or at least minimise the problems attendant to the modes of livelihood of the poor through various entry-level professions.

• An upper cap on numbers fearing their proliferation.
• Severe penalties for violations of the law, including complete eviction/ confiscation.
• Removal and rehabilitation of the affected at alternate locations, at times, in a multi-story shopping complex.
• Separation of zones for cycle rickshaw plying or street hawking. In case of shop licensing, it is more implicit and takes the form of zoning of urban land on the basis of usage.
• Attempts to ‘regularise’ the present offenders and then seek to stop any further encroachments.

These attempts have not really solved the problems.  The particular chapters dealing with the various modes of livelihood go into details of why these attempts have failed.  As a summary however consider these points: Market ultimately decides the number of cycle rickshaws or street hawkers.  No matter what the number government decides, the consumer demand rules.  Delhi fixed the number of cycle rickshaws at 99,000, but there more than five times as many on the roads.  The consumer is sovereign, not the government.  Increased penalties simply mean more harassment and extortion because where there is any demand for a good or service, there will be a supplier.  Resettlement of street vendors in more ‘appropriate’ areas overlooks the fact the vendors chose the other areas because they are ‘natural markets.’  Bus stops, hospitals, formal markets and shopping malls, where ever there is large pedestrian traffic, are all ‘natural markets’ for hawkers.  Urban planners cannot arbitrarily decide where the hawkers should be allowed to operate.   

Moreover it would be wrong to presume that this book deals only with the pursuit of livelihood opportunities of the poor. We indeed address concerns of the other stakeholders in the use and management of urban public space.  Pursuit of urban livelihoods by the poor need not be viewed as a trade-off vis-ŕ-vis the quality of life of urban residents. It is not a zero-sum game. In fact, the same policy measures that have generated misery for the poor have unequivocally lowered the quality of life for all the residents. With more informed and unbiased policies, a win-win situation can be created. Our objective is to provide a contextual space for discussions regarding costs and benefits of alternative institutional structures and policy frameworks..."(Page 29)

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