Street vendors only source of shopping in Valley

As separatists sponsored shutdown in Kashmir is nearing four-months, the street vendors have become only source for shoppers to purchase groceries and other items.

The vendors sell the stocks, which range from vegetables and fruit to mobiles, sim cards, kitchen wear items and warm clothes in most parts of Srinagar city. Virtually, the business of shopkeepers has been replaced by street vendors.

“We earn good profits as people have no choice but to make purchases from us,” says Altaf Ahmad, a street vendor near city center Lal Chowk.

The shutdown has also proved beneficial for street vendors as the police do not carry any eviction drive against them. “The police and municipal authorities were always after us during the peace time. We were accused of causing traffic jams and encroachment of footpaths. But now there are no such actions or complaints,” Ahmad said.

As shutdown has rendered thousands of labourers jobless, some of them have now started to sell fruit and vegetables on streets on small carts. “We are three brothers. We used to earn livelihood by doing manual labour. Nobody hired us during the ongoing unrest and there was no other source of income. We made temporary carts and started selling stocks on roads,” Ashfaq Dar, a resident of old city said.
He said earlier they would find no space on the roadside to install their stocks. “But now we have liberty to sell our stocks anywhere,” Dar added.

Zahoor Bhat, president of Street Vendors Association, says they keep their stocks on road pavements during the day. “It is our compulsion. The relaxation in strike (by separatists) comes into effect in the evening. So we have to finish our job by that time,” he said.

Several shopkeepers said that they were giving their stocks to the street vendors on commission basis. They said they do it as they are unable to do any businesses due to shutdown.

“I have a good stock of warm clothes. I provide the stocks to some street vendors to sell it. I pay him commission. In evening, they return the unsold stock,” said a shopkeeper at Regal Chowk. “The vendors provide us good profits than what we earn during relaxation period in evening, he added.”

The weekly ‘Sunday Market’ in Srinagar has also been witnessing increased rush of shoppers from the past several weeks. The rush of shoppers forced private vehicles plying on the road to take alternative routes as many street vendors had stalled their stocks at road pavements.

The city markets last opened on July 8. Kashmir has been observing continuous shutdown following the killing of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces on July 8.