This document summarizes the baseline survey results of a street food vendor project in Kolkata, India. It found that most vendors are men over 40 years old with primary education or less. Most vendors earn around Rs. 360 per day in profits selling cooked foods. Baseline hygiene practices were generally poor, with 38% having dirt on floors and 35% not covering raw foods. The project will provide training to 600 randomly assigned vendors to test how training impacts behaviors and business performance.

1. Street-Food Project Kolkata
Implemented by Gana Unnayan Parshad &
Joygopalpur Gram Vikash Kendra

2. 1. Motivation of the project
2. Methodology
3. Summary Statistics from the Baseline
Survey
 Geographical Area
 Demographic data
 Business data
 Hygiene Indicators

3.  Street-Vendors
 Represent 2% of urban population
 Source of self employment for the urban poor
 Source of affordable food to large part of the
urban population
 In Kolkata estimates say there are 150.000
street-food vendors (NCEUS, 2007)
Project Motivation

4.  However, street vendors suffer a welfare loss
because they work in the informal sector:
 They are subject to arbitrary evictions
 They are potential victims of abuses from
authorities
 They cannot demand any right
Formalization may help vendors!

5.  The national government is working to
formalize street-vendors expecting that…
“Vendors will suddenly change their
behaviours”
 The main hypothesis of the study is that
street-food vendors lack the necessary
awareness and capability to make alone such
a change in behaviour
 Project offers an innovative training to help
vendors in this process: specifically, to
improve their awareness and capability

6.  Awareness about:
 National hawkers act for protection and
livelihood
 Maintaining minimum Hygienic standards
 Health hazards
 Capability about:
 How to deal with hygienic standards and health
hazards
 How to improve their business

7.  Project offers a training designed for street-food
vendors in urban India
 Three workshops & follow-up visits at each kiosk
 Study took place in April,15-June,16
 How can we test the impact of the training?
 How can we explain the change in behavior?
 Impact Evaluation: Randomized Control Trial
2. Methodology

8.  The workshop offered to about 600 vendors
 Vendors have been randomly selected
 We selected vendors from different areas of the city
to have a representative sample of all the areas of
Kolkata
 We use a statistical software (STATA) to implement
the randomization and the statistical analysis

9.  Vendors are randomly assigned to different groups in
order to test the most effective way to improve
vendors’ performances!
 Vendors are randomly assigned to 4 groups:
 Group 1: pilot group for field testing
 Group 2: 3 –trainings within a period of 75 days
 Group 3: 3 –trainings within a period of 75 days along
with promotional materials
 Group 4: control group ( nothing done except
monitoring)

10.  The first baseline survey has been
collected in the period March-May 2015
 The following analysis is based on 924
collected surveys
 86% of vendors interviewed are owners of
the kiosk

12. Ultadanga: 57
Beliaghata: 80
Eden Garden: 42
Indian Museum: 37
Dalhousie: 254
Victoria Memorial: 68
Park Circus: 46
Rash Behari: 120
Behala: 84
Gariahat: 136
Dalhousi is the area
having the highest
vendors followed by
Rashbehari

14. 87%
13%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Men Women
Gender
• Men: 805; Women: 109
• Average age: 40 for men, 42 for women

15. 29%
27%
23%
12%
5%
3%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
no school primary upper primary secondary high secondary university
Education
• Less than 50% of vendors completed primary school

16. • 70% of vendors in Ultadanga own their house;
• Only 25% of vendors in Park Circus own their house

17. 56%
41%
2%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Bengali Hindi Other
Native Language

18. 40%
20%
40%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
No Yes Other
Are you originally from the Bengal…
• On average, they moved to Kolkata 26 years ago

19. 15%
36%
47%
2%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Yes, a lot Yes, a little Maybe, I don't know No
Do you expect this training can improve your earnings?
• 93% of vendors are interested in participating in a
training

20. 73%
27%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
Week End Week Day
When can you attend the training?
• 5% of vendors have already participated in a training

22. 42%
38%
11%
9%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
1 2 3 4 or more
How many people work in the stall (owner…

23. 53%
13%
20%
9% 7% 6%
2% 1%
0%
20%
40%
60% type of food sold
• 72% of vendors sell cooked food

25.  Average Revenue (per day): Rs. 1462
 Average Expenditure (per day): Rs. 1100
 Daily profits (per day): Rs. 360

26. • Highest revenue in Dalhousi & Ultadanga, lowest in
Victoria Memorial
Average revenue across 10 areas:

27. • Highest profits in Ultadanga, lowest in Victoria
Average profits across 10 areas:

28. 3% 3%
41%
9%
3% 3% 1%
21%
2% 1%
6% 8%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50% Union Name
• 30% of vendors are not part of a union

30. • 35% of vendors pay extra-money to the police
• Highest percentage in Indian Museum, lowest in
Beliaghata

31. 50%
32%
14%
2%
54%
50%
16%
2% 1%
0%
20%
40%
60%
Do you face any of these problem?
• 12% of vendors know of the National Act for Urban
Street Vendors 2014

33. Water & other tools
 95% of vendors providing water, use water
from a common container
 68% has a dustbin
 Only 1% uses an apron
 29% have “dirty” towels/cloths

34. Hygiene of the kiosk & cooking area
 38% had dirt or food debris on the floor
 26% had dust in the cooking area

35. Food
 35% Have raw food not covered
 25% Have cooked food not covered

36. Disposable Tools
 32% of vendors use disposable plates
 9% of vendors use disposable forks/spoons
 32% of vendors use disposable glasses

37.  Using STATA, we created an index which
measures vendors’ hygienic standards based
on the previous indicators
 This index aggregates all the observed
behaviour into a unique number
 The index takes value 0 for the lowest level
of hygiene and value 1 for the highest level
 Note: “1” can be interpreted as “behaving
according to the National Act”

38. • The average value is 0.57
Less Hygiene More Hygiene

39. • No big differences across areas!
Less Hygiene More Hygiene