Siddique Bappee
Oniket Research Group
The recent eviction of hundreds of street vendors from key commercial zones across Dhaka, followed by a directive from the highest executive authority to accelerate their rehabilitation, encapsulates a governance pattern that has recurred across successive administrations: enforcement without prior planning, and rehabilitation pledges that arrive after displacement has already occurred. The news appeared in leading dailies. The episode raises fundamental questions about urban governance, the political economy of informal trade, and whether Bangladesh’s city management institutions possess the institutional coherence to deliver durable solutions.
The Sequencing Problem: Eviction Before Policy
The most critical structural failing evident in this episode is the sequencing of eviction before the identification of alternative sites. Several hundred vendors were displaced from high-footfall commercial areas, including Motijheel, Paltan, Gulistan, and Mirpur , before any relocation infrastructure was in place. The subsequent emergency meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office, attended by officials from multiple agencies, was convened in response to displacement already enacted, not in anticipation of it. This reactive governance cycle- evict, respond to public pressure, announce rehabilitation, has characterised Dhaka’s approach to street vendor management for decades. Each iteration generates temporary relief followed by gradual re-encroachment, because the underlying spatial and economic pressures that drive vendors onto footpaths and roadways are never structurally addressed.
The Dhaka North City Corporation’s proposal to develop six temporary markets across open fields is operationally pragmatic but conceptually limited. The designation of sites as “temporary” immediately signals tenure insecurity to vendors, reducing their incentive to invest in the assigned space and increasing the likelihood of informal drift back to high-traffic locations where customer density is greater. The historical record of temporary vendor relocation sites in Dhaka is one of low uptake, gradual abandonment, and eventual return to street vending – a pattern that the current proposal does not structurally address.
Registration as Instrument: Necessary but Insufficient
The proposed registration system, under which vendors would receive identity cards and operate within designated zones on a fee basis, is a sound institutional starting point. Formalisation of the hawker population would provide the city corporations with a manageable data set for planning, enable progressive regulation, and afford vendors a degree of legal protection against arbitrary eviction. However, registration without security of tenure is an incomplete instrument. If registered vendors can still be displaced at administrative discretion, the identity card confers legal visibility without substantive protection. For the registration system to function as intended, it must be accompanied by a statutory framework governing vendors’ rights, eviction procedures, and dispute resolution, a legislative dimension that the current directive does not address.
Policy Thoughts
The priority must be to finalise and gazette designated vending zone locations before further enforcement actions are conducted in remaining areas. Eviction operations should be placed on hold until alternative sites are physically operational, accessible, and equipped with minimum amenity standards. The credibility of the rehabilitation commitment depends entirely on whether vendors who relocate find the alternative sites commercially viable. Sites placed in low-footfall open fields, far from the commercial corridors that sustain vendors’ customer base, will be rejected by the market regardless of formal designation.
The fee-based maintenance model for designated markets requires careful calibration. Vendor levies set too high relative to income capacity will deter registration and incentivise non-compliance; set too low, they will fail to generate adequate revenue for site management. A graduated fee structure, linked to stall size and product category, with transparent revenue accounting, would improve both uptake and sustainability.
Over the medium term, Bangladesh requires a national urban street vending policy that establishes minimum standards for local government hawker management, defines the legal status of registered vendors, and integrates vending zone planning into city corporation spatial and transport plans. Dhaka’s traffic congestion-explicitly flagged at the Prime Minister’s meeting, cannot be resolved through eviction alone; it requires coherent spatial planning that locates vending, parking, pedestrian movement, and transit infrastructure in a mutually compatible configuration. Without this systemic integration, eviction and rehabilitation cycles will continue indefinitely, consuming administrative resources while delivering no durable improvement to urban order or vendor livelihoods.
