The recent rounds of hartals have been creating different kinds of financial challenges for the country’s small traders, vendors and hawkers – who make their living day-to-day.
With most of their customers choosing to stay indoors because of the Jamaat-called hartals, the small traders are being forced to dip into their savings and working capitals; thus going downhill on a path that will see many of them leaving their professions out of desperation.
Harish Chowdhury, who sells cucumber and fruits in front of the capital’s Kamrunnesa Government Girls School, said he could hardly make any sale throughout the past week as the school stayed closed because of the hartals.
“We [hawkers in the area] are resuming selling cucumber from today [Friday] as the JSC [Junior School Certificate] exam has started. As schools are supposed to be open tomorrow, we are expecting sales to rise again.”
Harish said many other fruit-sellers also had to move their regular business elsewhere on hartal days and scout for potential gatherings of people.
Ismail Ali, another hawker, told the Dhaka Tribune: “I carry out my trade in front of Notre Dame College in Arambagh; but the college and Bangladesh Bank School along with Model and Ideal schools stayed closed last week, severely affecting our livelihood.”
Ismail said he bought fruits worth Tk900-Tk1,000 every day and made a 100% profit on a regular day, using the earning to support a six-member family. If the profit was slashed, he was forced to dip into his working capital, the fruit vendor said.
Siddiqur Rahman – who sells toys, caps and money bags in front of Baitul Mukarram National Mosque – said the amount of sales have declined sharply by 40% during hartal days.
“We wait for Friday when people come to Baitul Mukarram Mosque for [Jumma] prayers,” he added.
Small traders in the area, however, are not unfamiliar with political unrest hurting their business; Siddiqur pointed out that many hawkers near the mosque went broke after Hefazat-e-Islam activists burned down their makeshift shops in May last year.
FBCCI Vice-President Md Helal Uddin said the hartals had badly hit the country’s service sector, which covers around 55% of the economy and includes informal sectors like hawkers and small vendors. The hartals ate up the working capital of small vendors, the vice-president of the apex trade body said.
Maruf Rahman, an advocacy officer for the NGO World for Better Bangladesh(WBB) which works to promote rights of small traders, said it was not possible for the government – which had not yet given a legal identity to hawkers – to provide the traders with financial support during hartals.
In our neighbouring country India, the government had enacted a hawkers law in 2009 to give the small traders legal protection and licences, he pointed out.
“During any hartal, the educational institutions remain closed. So, the income of the vendors just gets halved. Then the small traders start spending from their capital. And thus at one stage, they become a poor man and leave the sector to work as day labourers,” Maruf added.
Research by the WBB shows that there are 235,000 people doing their business with small capital in Dhaka, while the number of mobile hawkers is 95,000. The total number of hawkers and small makeshift business besides footpaths across the country is 2,197,000. The study also shows that the working capital of small traders ranges between Tk200 and Tk50,000, while their average income ranges from Tk300 to Tk1,000 per day.
Following the death penalty verdict against Jamaat Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami, the Islamist party called hartals on October 30 as well as on November 2 and 3. A fresh round of hartals was called again by the Jamaat on November 5 and 6, protesting the verdicts against party leaders M Kamaruzzaman and Mir Quasem Ali respectively.
