Coronavirus Fallout Hawkers lose livelihoods, getting no support during crisis

Thousands of hawkers in the capital and other cities of Bangladesh are faced with a dire situation when COVID-19 rages and after the government declared the whole country as risky for infections, prohibiting movement from dusk to dawn.

Sales of the street vendors saw a drastic decline following the detection of the first COVID-19 patient in Bangladesh on March 8, and sales came to a standstill when government declared public holiday from March 26, hawkers said.

Poor hawkers said that right after the public holiday was declared, Dhaka looked deserted and they were confined to their houses but no one from the government or their unions came to them with aid.

Hawkers said that at least Tk 100 crore a month had been collected from roadside hawkers in the capital in the name of welfare as each hawker was paying Tk 50-500 a day to the ‘designated linesmen’ who were said to be sharing the money with the police, political leaders and city corporation officials.

‘No one is here to help us now,’ said Hamid Ali, a shoe seller on Gulistan sidewalk.

Leaders of hawker organisations said that there were roughly 50 hawker organisations, including 40 registrar organisations.

Meanwhile, the capital’s main areas with hawkers on footpath and at the roadside looked vacant, no hawkers could open their stalls at Motijheel Commercial Area, Baitul Mokarram, Gulistan, GPO, stadium, Golapshah Majar, Fulbaria and around the Ramna Bhaban.

Bangladesh Hawkers League and Bangladesh Hawkers Federation president MA Kashem said that the hawkers also participated in political activities but they are now denied of all types of government declared relief activities.

‘I have sent a list of 3,374 hawkers of Gulistan and Shahbag, who are enlisted with the City Corporation, to the deputy commissioner of Dhaka asking for relief,’ said Kashem, also a member of government’s vendor rehabilitation committee.

He said that every day over 200 hawkers call him over phone asking for relief which he could not manage as party leaders and city mayors were not responding to his calls.

‘I urge the authorities to issue ration cards for hawkers,’ he told New Age on Friday.

Arifur Rahman, a vendor at Gulistan sidewalk, said that all hawkers in Dhaka were hoping to resume business soon but the crisis was gradually deepening. Union leaders or government agencies were yet to take steps, he added.

‘I see no guarantee of bread and butter for my family,’ he said.

There is no exact figure of hawkers as there is no complete list in existence, but leaders said that more than one lakh people in the city were directly involved in this essential informal economic sector in the capital.

Bangladesh Hawkers Union president Abul Hasan Kabir said that the vendors were spending inhuman life after losing their source of income due to coronavirus pandemic but they were not given any assistance.

New Age talked to a number of hawker leaders who denied that they had been collecting money for the hawkers’ welfare. They said that for doing business on the footpaths, hawkers regularly paid different quarters, which was nothing but extortion.

Dhaka South city mayor Mohammad Sayeed Khokon said that they have no separate scheme of relief distribution among the hawkers but they could collect relief from local councillors who were distributing relief among the needy.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net