Off The Street
When the roadside thela can serve your meal hot but not fresh


Ek Muttar Parantha please, I said to the vendor. Kitna time lagega? Madam, 15 minutes. What? Why? Are you going to the fields to pluck muttar? The man looked at me and smiled.

Yes, this is Nehru Place, an important financial, trade, com - mercial and business hub of South Delhi - large four storey buildings with underground parking and an expanse of free pedestrian plaza in the centre. This pedestrian space is busy and alive with hawking stalls selling all kinds of wares - clothes, cheap electronics, shoes, books and most importantly, Food. Many stalls dot the pedestrian space, which includes the Chaat stalls, Chinese, Indian, Tibetan food, fruit juices and more.

My mutter parantha finally arrives in a silver packet. Here madam is your parantha says, Lato Yadav the food stall wala where I have been waiting to grab a bite for the last quarter of an hour. But aren't food hawkers supposed to be conjuring food at the stall hot, fresh and sumptuous?

This is an office area where people earn Rs. 5000, 10000 or even 50000. Can everyone eat in restaurants every day? "Promote a supportive environment for urban street vendors and also ensure their vending activities do not lead to overcrowding and unsanitary conditions in public spaces" National policy on urban street vendors (2009) National policy on urban street vendors (2009)

So why an aluminium foil wrapped parantha instead? "Madam, all food thela (hawking stall) owners at Nehru Place, but no one cooks their food on the thela.

We are not allowed to use gas or cook directly on our thelas. The authorities do not allow us."

I think I know why. It's the Supreme Court Order February 2007, which prohibits cooking of food at the stalls, but has provision for the food to be pre-cooked at the home of the food vendor and packed and sold at the stall. But isn't that ridiculous? Thela food is suppose to be fresh and hot so why this stricture?

The neighbouring restaurants, and permanent food stalls attached to the complex that have a permanent structure and kitchen attached to them are able to keep cooking fresh food through the day as per the demands and orders by the consumers.

"But how many can afford to eat at the restaurant everyday? This is an office area and in an office there are people that earn 5000, 10000, or even 50000. Can everyone eat at the restaurants," wonders Om - prakash, who is a regular at one of the thelas.

When the Supreme Court had ordered a ban on cooking at the food stalls, it had raised issues of the unhygienic conditions around food stalls that could be harmful to the people eating at the stalls. But how can cleanliness be monitored especially, when food is cooked, packed, transported from far off and sold.

Ram Prasad, who owns a food thela nearby says, "We do not cook what we sell at home. We have a small house. At home we have our wives and children. We pool in together and have a place about a kilometre away, behind the parking

When the roadside thela can serve your meal hot but not fresh OFF THE STREET lot where we cook till about 11am, just before the office lunch hours, so that the food is warm when the customers arrive". Every thela owner begins his business about the same time and wraps by late evening, selling an average of 50-70 plates per day. There is a regular stream of clients that are catered to.

The food vendors say the authorities also point to risks of combustion and blast, if cooking is permitted on food stalls. However, some like Karim khan, a book stall vendor on the street refutes, "I believe that these food thelas are still in the centre in the pedestrian plaza. The hotels and permanent stalls, fast food joints that are within the complex are more a risk to the complex and its offices."

The Nehru Place commercial zone is a pilot project, in collaboration between DDA and Manushi Sanghthan an NGO since the year 2006. As a model pilot project, the Nehru Place could set an example in designed planning, by incorporating facilities for safe, hygienic, clean cooking for the street food vendors. The Supreme Court which had issued a ban on the street side cooking, itself later has stressed the need on the part of the MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) to provide for infrastructure for hygienic cooking conditions. The BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) has prepared and finalized norms that pertain to the quality of street food. These norms stipulate the practices for safe cooking and the location of food stalls that can ensure food quality standards.

In the recent years there have been a few policies and laws that have been created around the hawking community. Almost all of these policies and laws make an effort to regularise and facilitate the hawking community. The National Policy on Urban Street Vendors, 2009, prepared by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, states its overarching objective "...to promote a supportive environment for the vast mass of Urban street vendors to carry out their vocation while at the same time ensuring that their vending activities do not lead to overcrowding and unsanitary conditions in public spaces and streets." It also tries to create for organisation and civic facilities for the hawking community. The policy that covers all kinds of urban street vendors, suggests facilities of cold storage for meat, fish vendors, electricity, clean drinking water, public toilets, protective covers to protect the hawkers and their wares from dust, sunlight and rains. However, the list of civic amenities fails to cover facilities for food stall owners to help them cook safe and hygienically without too much hindrance to their daily business. The different spatial planning norms mentioned in the policy also have no provisions in this regard. The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, that makes provision for registration and licensing of all food businesses, including food hawkers. With inadequate facilities to supply fresh food, it seems unlikely that the Act will meet its objectives, within the hawking community.

In the Nehru Place commercial complex alone, there are 70-80 odd food hawkers. The number of food stalls across Delhi are estimated by some studies to be around 60,000- 80,000. Considering the large population that might be dependent on the street food vendors for their daily meals, it is imperative, that policy makers formulate policies and provide facilities that would cater to the large street food dependent section of population.