Lamphel site fails to attract Khwairamband street vendors
'Vamoose after 8 am' order leaves many high and dry
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, April 26 2022: A large number of street vendors of Khwairamband Keithel have been literally left high and dry on account of the new regulations enforced by the Imphal Municipal Corporation (IMC) .

The IMC issued an order on April 19 whereby all street vendors are prohibited from plying their trade on the streets of Khwairamband after 8 am.

The same order has pushed a large number of street vendors into a very precarious situation and many of them are now unable to earn a square meal a day.

Sagolsem Kanti Devi of Sagolband Meino Leirak said that she is unable to pay back the capital she borrowed from others to run her business and no money is left with her to buy even medicines which should be taken daily after street vendors are banned from plying their trade on the streets of Khwairamband.

Notably, Sagolsem Kanti is a diabetic patient. She said that a minimum of Rs 650 is needed for buying medicines in a week.

This is in addition to the daily expenditures.

Lamphel site fails to attract Khwairamband street vendors

Kanti said that she was somehow able to manage her family's daily requirements and her own medicines as she was able to earn Rs 400/500 per day when street vendors were allowed at Khwairamband.

Soibam Bilasini of Heinoubok said that the State Government's new regulation is only multiplying the woes of street vendors.

She confided that even their homestead has been mortgaged as her family ran into debts after debts in the wake of the Covid-19 lockdown.

The misery has been further compounded as some of her family members need medical treatment continuously, said Bilasini who is now 70 years.

"I felt like crying when Government authorities chased away street vendors like cattle from Khwairamband Keithel at the stroke of 8 am every day when my family has been going through a very miserable situation", she said.

On the Government's arrangement for alternative vending space at Lamphel Sanakeithel, Bilasini said that all the vending plots of Sanakeithel have been already occupied and very little customers come there.

Rushing to the aid of Bilasini, Gurumayum Lembisana, another street vendor from Canchipur said that over 70 per cent of the street vendors of Khwairamband belong to families which are economically very weak.

Maintaining that majority of the vendors plying their trade on the streets of Khwairamband belong to greater Imphal areas, Lembisana said that there are big differences between the poor family of greater Imphal areas and those of rural areas.

Poor families of rural areas have at least paddy/rice in their granaries and kitchen gardens from where they can gather vegetables.

But the street vendors from greater Imphal areas must earn some money every day to buy rice and vegetables, she said.

It is this harsh reality which compels streets vendors to face all odds and challenges in order to earn a square meal a day, she said.

She also accused the Government of trying to forfeit their only source of livelihood.

Mayengbam Thadoi Leima of Langol Games village who used to be a street vendor at Khwairamband Keithel before shifting to Lamphel Sanakeithel said that the average daily sale is very low at Lamphel Sanakeithel.

She said that she was able to earn Rs 500/600 per day when she plied her trade at Khwairamband but now she is running into losses, leave aside earning profit.

Even though local street vendors have been chased away from Khwairamband Keithel after the IMC came out with its new regulation, non-local traders and vendors who are selling vegetables on Nagamapal road and other congested areas of the State after importing their merchandises in truck loads from outside the State are still given a free run, she pointed out.

Thadoi decried that the new regulation blatantly favours the rich non-local traders while victimising the local street vendors who have been struggling hard to meet both ends.

She also expressed keen desire for the authorities concerned to facilitate accommodation of street vendors at Lamphel Sanakeithel in a systematic manner.

In order to promote Sanakeithel as an alternative market for vegetables and similar goods, it is essential to re-locate non-local street vendors from Khwairamband to Sanakeithel and designate the same area as parking lot for certain passenger vehicles, she said.

Even though the authorities have directed street vendors of Khwairamband Keithel to shift to Lamphel Sanakeithel after 8 am, a large number of vendors have been already plying their trade there.

Moreover, some influential and well connected people have booked a large number of vendor plots.

As a result, no vendor plot is now vacant or available, Thadoi said.

Some street vendors, on condition of anonymity, said that many of the vendors who have booked their vending space at Lamphel Sanakeithel belong to well off and influential families.

Many of the women in whose names vendor plots have been booked at Sanakeithel never venture out of their homes, forget about vending vegetables and other goods, they said.

The Roadside Vendors' Welfare Association president Kshetrimayum Tamma lamented that the successive Governments have never worked sincerely to resolve the issue of street vendors.

She said that many of the street vendors can be accommodated at the temporary market site as well as other vacant areas of Khwairamband including the BT Road area where fishing nets are sold.

Tamma said that a considerable number of street vendors can also be accommodated on the upper floors of the three Ima Keithel buildings.