Street vendors are important part of society: Faisal Karim Kundi

ISLAMABAD, Nov 18 (SABAH): Faisal Karim Kundi, Special Assistant to Prime Minister for Poverty Alleviation & Social Safety Friday said that street vendors are important part of society and by recognizing them through legislation & regulations we can build our economy.

This Faisal Karim Kundi said while presiding a briefing on providing enabling environment for street vending. Zia Banday, senior fellow PIDE and focal person of street vendors’ program, gave a detailed presentation on the ongoing program in Islamabad, its challenges and future roadmap.

The meeting was attended by Nadeem Afzal Chan, Former PPP MNA and high officials of the ministry along with representative street vendors. Zia Banday apprised Faisal Karim Kundi about the challenges faced by street vendors. Previous government didn’t provide legal status to Rehrhi Ban project that’s why such a useful scheme had to face a closure in the initial stages, said Faisal Karim Kundi. The present government will provide legal status to the project, he added.

Street vendors discussed their fears and expectations of vendor’s community with Faisal Karim Kundi. Kundi assured them full support for the welfare of street vendors. He said that vendors will only welcome this project if legal grounds are provided to the project. This project must be extended to the provincial level, he added.

It was elaborated in the meeting that in comparison to other developing countries, street vendors remained much neglected segment in Pakistan. It is left to fend itself on the cost of perpetual squeezing by predators from both private and public entities. Based upon PIDE research survey, street economy of urban Pakistan is conservatively estimated at around PKR 900-1000 billion with up to a million street vendors operating. This is an overwhelmingly cash, unrecorded and informal economy with little graduation opportunities for Bottom of Pyramid (BoP) street vendors.