Home Minister Bamdev Gautam is right to crack down on street vendors, especially on crowded thoroughfares like Kalanki, Ratna Park, Jamal, and Bag Bazaar. But the measures he took were too harsh. A few days ago, Gautam assigned the Nepal Police, the Traffic Police Office, the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) Office and two sub-metropolitan offices to remove pavement stalls by force. A better move would have been to take the representatives of the Street Vendors Union affiliated to different political parties into confidence, and discuss with them options to end the practice of haphazard vending of goods before taking any action. Options to regulate street vending include instituting a vendor license system, providing government-owned land on lease or allowing all vendors fixed times to sell their merchandise on busy thoroughfares. Only after a system is put in place should the government have prosecuted pavement merchants who continue to do business illegally.

There are around 6,000 vendors in the corners and pavements of Kathmandu. With unemployment on the rise and migrants streaming in form villages to towns and cities, thousands of people have turned to hawking goods in the streets. Street vendors and their clamor are an integral part of life in the capital city. Holiday shoppers and tourists spend tons of cash at the pavement bazaars, But the makeshift markets often make sidewalks impassable, give opportunities to protection rackets and undercut legitimate merchants. Worldwide, there are street vendors in almost all major cities including New York, Jakarta, and even Beijing. However, unlike in Kathmandu, they have a license to operate and are not usually allowed to peddle wars on busy thoroughfares.

The streets of Kathmandu have always been a market-place where everything sells. There are thousands of vendors who use the streets for their livelihood. The problem of street vending is primarily due to the absence of laws governing street vendors. A solution would be to move the vendors off the main thoroughfares and into open -air-markets. A similar arrangement was made in 1992 when around 1,300 street vendors were moved into Bhrikuti Mandap from the pavement. Similarly, the current government has informally decided to establish zones where hawkers can operate. This is an encouraging move. But this may not be adequate: the number of vendors has quadrupled in the past 16 years. Now licensing requirements and street regulations are required to ease the vendors' crush. Proper thoughts should have been given and regulations established before taking the decision to crack down.