|
|
|
|
| NOPARKING |
Illegal city
They fan out into the Grand City every morning. Build
kothi walls, repair leaking pipes, dye cloth, pack water bottles. fabricate curtain rods,
window panes, car parts, watch dials, plastic soup bowls. handmade paper, ledger files,
voucher files. cart buckets, cement, sand, iron filings, acid, modular kitchens,
refrigerators (running and discarded), cisterns, vegetables.They
can break the city down into its parts, but prefer to put it together, patch it up, shore
it up.
 They exist, and are presented, for what they are not (non-formal, not
developed, unemployed, illegal, not taken into account in official statistics, not counted
in GNP, not a social class, non-central, not organised); or for their lack (lack of
capital, lack of entreprenuership, lack of organisation and political conscience, lack of
education, infrastructure, rationality).
The City leans on them. It thrives on them. It expands because of
them. It is Grand because of them.
| The 5 lakh vendors
of Delhi pay the government Rs. 40 crore a month, that is Rs. 480 crore a year – as
bribes. |
Over 90 per cent of India's
work force earns its livelihood in the informal sector, which accounts for 63 per cent of
the country's GDP. Over 94 per cent of women workers in India fall in this category.
|
| In Africa, urban informal employment
is estimated to absorb 61 per cent of the urban labour force. Employment in the informal
sector constitutes around 60-70 per cent of the total population in Nairobi (Kenya) and
Kumasa (Ghana), 50 per cent in Lagos (Nigeria). |
VEGETABLE
VENDOR.NAALLI WALLAH. |
BOOZER.DRUDDIE.GOONDA. |
| RICKSHAWALLAH.CARPENTER.MAID. |
|
 |
MASTERBUILDER.
PAINTER.
PLUMBER. |
| PICKPOCKET. PROSTITUTE. |
SWEEPER. PRESSWALLAH.
HANDYMAN. |
| LOAFER.HUCKSTER. TRICKSTER. |
| ICECREAM SELLER. BALLOON WALLAH. |
| DIRTY.SMELLY. SWEATY. |
| LOHARI. DOLL MAKERS. BASKET WEAVER. |
|
|
Informal economy
Papa goes to office. He works in the
‘formal economy’. He does a good job. His work is respectable. He doesn’t
like small-scale businesses that escape the taxman, or anyone working in the black market,
the ‘informal economy’.
For Papa, the ‘formal economy’ is the norm, the informal
one is its aberration. The former is ‘honest’; the latter, ‘corrupt’.
Marketing managers vs drug traffickers.
 But often, the informal is present in the very heart of the formal economy.
Like a slum in a city. Like the civil servant who benefits from bribes. Businesses,
employers, consumers and citizens have one foot in the formal, the other in the informal.
The two constantly interact.
The formal economy often needs the informal: to obtain raw
materials, as distribution and sales outlets, and for maintaining relations with the wider
society. Even in developed countries, there exists a shadow economy.
The informal is an entire way of life for those in poverty, for
those who never go to work like Papa. We might think twice before dismissing the
‘informal economy’ as a wasted life. |
|
|
|
