Power of Vendors

The current global economic crisis is the perfect example to exhibit the real power of the street vendors. The cash based, informal economy proved to be a safe haven. When millions of jobs were being lost in the formal economy around the globe, there was no layoff for in the informal economy. Informal sectors, in addition absorbed lots of workers, who has lots their job due to the financial crisis in the formal sector .
In the context of Nepal, where population has out stripped the job creation, the number of Nepalese entering the informal economy will continue to rise in upcoming years. Even though, informal economy often don't pay taxes, and they routinely lack the capital and expertise to be as productive as big enterprises, leading to less innovation, informal economy will provided markets access to meet the needs and create jobs to serve thousands of urban poor. Majority of the urban poor do their retail shopping in the streets. Despite of the burgeoning mall culture, the number of people, who enjoys their chana chatpatey and pani puris in the street corner, by far exceeds the population, who sips coffee lattes in the food court of some mall .The informal sector has a huge business opportunities to serve the base of the pyramid (BOP) and tapped the unmet need of the urban poor.
With the bleak political stability and sluggish economic growth, I highly doubt that the formal sectors of the economy will be able to create thousands of new jobs to absorb the unemployed workforce population in the near future. Government of Nepal instead of showing apathy to the informal sector should embrace the underground economy, which has already been the permanent fixture –in both happy and rainy days .Government should come up with prudent measures and polices like providing micro credits and enterprise development vocational training to facilitate the informal economy ,which has alleviated thousands of Nepal out of poverty and has been a significant contributor to keep the nation’s economy afloat.