Informal Sector

This paper provides a historical analysis of the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 and the subsequent amendment in 2016. It highlights the relationship between the struggles for the right to livelihood, urban spatial governance, and legislative intervention. The legislation fails to address the conditions created by urban and developmental planning, everyday forms of violence and harassment, and the gendered nature of public space entitlement. The paper foregrounds the voices of women street vendors in New Delhi. It critically examines the laws, policies, and activism and points to internal contradictions and limitations within each of these efforts to alleviate the condition and livelihood of street vendors.

Only bold interventions by the government can ensure a quick recovery of the economy.

In the postcolonial era, tax reforms in many developing/emerging economies resorted to indirect taxes under the presumptions of broadening the tax base and achieving horizontal equity. But, leakage in the form of evasion had challenged the attainment of these objectives, and continues doing so even after half a century of constant churning by tax architects to arrive at an optimum solution. The ease of evasion is indicative of the gap in the “lab to land” transfer of technique. From a theoretical standpoint, the goods and services tax, based on the principles of value added tax, can potentially address much of the malaise afflicting VAT in a federal polity, and may also offer the desired bridge for an informal economy to move towards the realm of formalisation in the long run.