Permanent fair for migrant street vendors proposed

A day-long exhibition-cum-sale featuring their products held at Perumbavoor

If things work out as planned, street vendors among the migrant community will get formal monthly markets across the State to sell their wares.

Don Bosco Veedu, a Thiruvananthapuram-based NGO, has come up with such a proposal under Kerala Interstate Migrants Alliance for Transformation (Kismat), its four-year-old project for migrant welfare. Kismat has been running 12 help desks, including two in Ernakulam, for migrant workers across 11 districts.

A day-long exhibition-cum-sale featuring handmade products of migrant street vendors from across the State was held in connection with this at Perumbavoor on Saturday.

“The fair was intended as a pilot project towards the larger goal of facilitating formal markets for their products across the State. There was enthusiastic participation, since they are now reeling under the impact of the pandemic and having proper shops will not only help their sales during the monsoon but will also help them fight the battle of perception with the local population, who are less than accommodative towards them,” said Sandhya Ramakrishnan, State coordinator of Kismat.

The idea is to develop a self-help group for migrant street vendors to help them better coordinate and market their products unlike in a completely disorganised way in which it is being done now.

Migrant street vendors from various districts participated in the fare held near the Perumbavoor bus stand. “Mostly handcraft products made by migrants from Odisha, Assam, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Arunachal Pradesh were showcased in the fair. The fair, named ‘Apna Bazar’, was very colourful with its many attractive items and drew good response from the migrant as well as local communities,” said Raveendra Prasad, coordinator of Kismat in Angamaly.

Among the products featured included decorative articles, bangles, dress items, and indigenous snacks of the participating migrant communities.