Sushain Gupta
Informal sector influences the quality of urban landscapes in integrating the economy infrastructure within the built environment in urban areas. Unfortunately, many urban Governments do not realize that the growth of informal sector in urban areas is increasing with the rapid increase in transportation network and urbanization. Street vendors eventually come across the roadside to support the urban population thereby occupying the huge chunk of land.
Thus informal sector provides basic services to the people but it is also generating some impacts on urban landscape performance, including traffic jam, crowded pedestrian way or arcade, messy, and untidy urban spaces leading to chaotic urban streets, noise pollution etc. This trend constitutes a crucial factor to determine how public spaces look like, particularly the existence of street vendors and small business (kiosks) where this sector easily use and occupy public spaces, such as sidewalk or pedestrian way, shopping arcade, street right of way, town square for trading their commodities, such as cooked food or other merchandise. This creates a particular image of the city in the minds of the observer. For example, “rani ka talab” area near jain school is the prominent area suffering with the ill effects of informal or the natural markets. Other areas of the city includes bus stand area, upper gumat or near the railway station.
No doubt, our Indian societies cannot work without this sector. Hence it is one of the most important sector of the Indian cities. On one hand, the existence of the informal sector in urban areas could contribute in reducing employment problems. On the other hand the way how the informal sector uses public spaces, particularly street vendors, which is disturbing public activities in urban areas. Street vendors should consider other urban community activities that simultaneously need convenience for working and living in urban areas. Informal sector also includes slums & squatters, EWS which settles near to the urban areas from where labour or domestic help can be provided or in the city fringes where there are minimum chances of evacuating the area. That is why slums are mostly near to the water channels or nallahs or sometimes along the railway tracks. Grouping of people with common characteristics (which may be due to migration, religion, community, common jobs etc) in the city periphery threatens the change in the form of the cities and hence it changes the urban fabric. This is the way how informal sector currently changes land uses and urban landscapes. So the role of the informal sector in urban landscape is crucial to contribute and develop the quality of public spaces and the urban landscape.
According to the Economic Survey Report (March 2013) tabled by the state government recently in the Legislative Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir; In Jammu division, the total estimated BPL population percentage has been worked out at 21.67 per cent (10.59 lakh persons) with a dispersion of 25.61 percent (9.69 lakh persons) in rural areas and 8.19 percent (0.90 lakhs persons) in urban areas. A substantial section of street vendors in Jammu deserve to take benefit of the Public Distribution System (P.D.S) system. It was found in the present study that majority (76%) of street vendors in Jammu do not take benefit of purchasing ration and kerosene oil at cheaper rates from ration depots. It was revealed that some of the non state subject vendors are using rented ration cards, actually belonging to the state subjects for the purchase of kerosene oil. Thus, economic conditions of the street vendors of Jammu are poor.
Working conditions for vendors in the Jammu city-
Most of the vendors in the areas studied have to work in harsh and inclement weather for long hours. They are not allowed to use sun shades to protect themselves from the scotrching heat of the sun and the rain by police and municipal authorities. Rain for most vendors has a different meaning it means for them loss of a working day. In order to apply for vending license in Jammu one must be a state subject. But it has been found that in Gandhi Nagar area that some vendors possess license without having Permanent Residence Certificate (PRC). They reported that they have to pay Rs 5000 for getting license and Rs 2000 as garbage collection charges. It has been found that most of the fruit and vegetable vendors buy fruits and vegetables from the Narwal Mandi at whole sale prices. These small vendors purchase these items collectively and distribute it among themselves. However there were some vendors who do not purchase fruits directly from Narwal but from other vendors. Relatively insignificant proportion of vendors has reported to be suffering from fever, cough, body ache, skin diseases, typhoid, dysentery, ulcer, eye strains, etc. There are hardly any basic amenities available for them at the vending place. This has a telling effect on their health as many of them reported to be suffering from various diseases. Non availability of clean drinking water at the work place not only make them more prone to water borne diseases but also their customers especially in case of food and edible item vendors.
In present scenario, the existence of informal trading does not encourage the green cover in public spaces . The limitation of green spaces will increase the temperature of the urban areas as an impact of “urban heat island” (UHI). Major proportion of concrete in urban areas absorbs lot of sun’s heat thereby increasing atmospheric temperature, so vegetation is crucial to reduce negative effect of UHI. The objective is to reduce the hard surfaces from the urban areas to the multifunctional green spaces in order to have maximum community interaction and encouraging the spaces for people to enjoy the fresh air. This might attract children to move out of the four walls and feel more connected with the natural environment. It is important to balance the natural and manmade environment as the basic of the healthy urban landscape. The need of the hour is to accommodate the informal sector in special dedicated areas in the urban streets and provided them with basic facilities like water supply, electricity, common toilets, solid waste management, and safe landscaping with wide canopy trees to give shade to the street vendors. But many cities including Jammu is failing to accommodate them. As a result, the unstructured informal sector in urban spaces has created unexpected quality of urban landscape. Some key aspects of urban design have been developed with specific reference to regeneration and development issues and provide a basis for starting to think about a site or area as part of urban landscape.
Places for People
For places to be well-used and well-loved, they must be safe, comfortable, varied and attractive. They also need to be distinctive, and offer variety, choice and fun. Vibrant places offer opportunities for meeting people and playing in the street. The crucial indicator of the design aspect is (1) quality of the public realm and (2) continuity and enclosure that can create an environment where everyone is able to access and benefit from the full range of opportunities available to members of society
Work with the Landscape
Places that strike a balance between the natural and manmade environment and utilize each site’s intrinsic resources – the climate, landform, landscape and ecology – to maximize energy conservation and amenity. This aspect will be indicated by design using natural harmony.
Spatial organization of urban landscape includes urban morphologies, Views and vistas, streets, composition, fabric, and the moving scenery. Urban landscapes with a high content of vegetation elements have potentials to perform a variety of social functions and as such to establish or regain a role of healthy, desirable and restorative urban landscapes.
However, the placement of many street vendors on the pedestrian way does not comply with the concept of the “place for people” that must be smooth and convenient in nature. The role of the informal vendors operating in the public spaces does not encourage and motivate the development of a balance urban landscape in promoting the natural element to the urban environment. This suggest that the informal trading significantly does not comply with the indicator “working with the landscape” as an important aspect of the fundamental urban design . Therefore, it is crucial to speed up some actions to respond to the problem and to provide some action programs. The issue is how the public and private land and structure to harmonize the formal and informal businesses to be side by side to increase the quality of the urban landscape.
(The author is M.Arch(Urban Design)
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