From the business centres to the pavements along broader city streets and now to the un-gated residential areas, the cheerful vendors have spread their reach.
Little cycle vans over reach their occupancy to roads, making a mockery of the authorities looking to provide wider streets and motorways. They offer convenience, low prices in these depleting-wallet days and crucially, outlets for agri produce and a host of SME goods.
The entrepreneurs have their own little battles to fight. The police must be kept happy as must the local muscle-men. The willing or lackadaisical apathy of those that should be keeping watch on public thoroughfares, have emboldened these operators into narrowing footpaths and encroaching on roads. Once in a while there will be an eviction drive that force prompt exits from the scene. After a decent gap they return to rebuild.
They don't have access to structured loans. Their borrowings come from personal contacts or loan sharks. Many that have had to close down in desperation, with economic grimness pushing their backs to the walls.
As is usual with business and trade allowed to grow and expand without regulation the chances are that public movement will soon be throttled. As far as the vendors are concerned they couldn't care less.
Theirs' is a fight for survival, often with young families to look after.
Bangabandhu Avenue, Gausia Market, the internal areas of Uttara, Farm Gate, and even the sprawling Mirpur are glaring examples where authorities have lost the plot. The plans created during the worst days of the pandemic, of demarcated open spaces set aside for vendors, was never built upon. It's just one more headache city dwellers must shrug shoulders and bear.
The two City Corporations in charge of providing basic amenities ran much publicized eviction and demolition drives for a while. The shops were razed, the footpaths cleared and buildings were demolished. Yet, they are coming up again, though a little more surreptitiously.
The same city dwellers that bemoaned lack of foot-over bridges continue to show athletic prowess in scaling road barriers. Others complaining of snarls in front of schools and colleges have no compunction in buying some of their essentials from the vendors.
So secure are the vendors that where they previously trundled their vans home, they now wrap them up and sleep easy knowing the night-watch is there. Bigger businesses and Federations term it “cost of doing business.”
Strange as it may seem, recognized kitchen markets began the trend long ago with mostly vegetable sellers merrily camping on the most planned of market roads, so as to quietly make them unavailable to traffic. They weren't up-in-arms at their business being diverted to the vendors. In some cases it's a partnership born out of convenience. From a broad entrepreneurship perspectives, it's a big leap forward. For progressive entrepreneurship, it's two-steps back.
The wide assortment of SME products on sale ranging from garments to toys and trinkets suggest the wheels of production are churning. They have a distinctive buyer profile. The reach can be expanded with proper and penetrative marketing and promotion.
National platforms are there as mannequins, woefully ineffective. The Annual Trade Fair and even the Book fair would be ideal platforms for SME industry promotion, albeit in cordoned off areas and spaces provided at preferential rates. Simple common sense approaches as opposed to grandiose seminars and exhibitions will achieve much more with stakeholders involved. Sadly, it's another case of missing the wood for the trees.
